live-for-free

I saw a dead possum the other day – I took it home. With a light sheen of morning dew, it slept peacefully with its jaws half-open, tiny teeth catching and reflecting the early morning light. A pretty little thing, sculpted by nature in soft fur and hardened flesh, with the passing of time it would rot and fill the air with a sour stench of decay. So I took it home and placed it near an ant hill under an overturned flower pot, where the ants would help me clean it, removing layer by layer of biological composition until they reached its core, the most beautiful and basic yet complex structure – the skeleton. I then retrieved and boi

It was impossible for me to tear my eyes away. One splash of Prussian blue, another splash of gold oxide, a dynamic wave of contrasts weaved through beams of deep purple. Titanium white sprinkled on top in a drizzle of frost icing. Each flicks of the brush a dance, each stroke a trail of wonder. If only I could paint like that. If only I could blend and mix like that. If only I could distinguish colours like that. If only. "Hey." "Huh?" I blinked out of my daydream. Funny splotches of viridian and ochre floated around in my line of vision. I tried to rub them away and squinted in the sunlight. "Oh, hi." I straightened my posture a litt

I stood outside my school gates and looked up at the rain. The millions of small drops pierced down, wetting my hair and my school uniform. They dropped and disappeared, each a small wet dot on the polyester white of my shirt. Their lives were short, mere seconds, and they did nothing to deserve the end of their existence, but that was the way things were. Everything would come to an end eventually. That was the way things were. I stared down at the exam paper in my hands. 60%. Almost a fail. And to my parents it would already be a fail. Anything below 80% was failing and if I got 80% then it would mean a nightlong lecture about how I was no

It was night. It was winter. It was cold. It was quiet. He was alone. He was sad. He was confined. He wanted out. There was no-one, anyone, who would let him outside the boundaries of his cage. There was no-one, anyone, who knew that he was there. There was no-one, anyone, who would want to care. He sat there, alone, as he always did, every night, waiting. He wasn't waiting for anyone to come, for that had already been impossible. He wasn't waiting for anything to happen, for nothing would happen. He wasn't going to eat, to drink, to sleep, to die. No-one would let him out of his cage. No-one will want to keep him there. He just existed, q