Self-Ashtualisation

   Gosh! I am so tempted to start this post with, ‘Duh. The end of the first half of my post,’ which, through this confession, I have. The ‘duh’ in question is none other than the (spoiler alert) first half of this post, as that part of the title, ‘Receiving My First Rejection on 1 Sep’ has suggested. To lengthen the short story, it was 8pm on 1 Sep in my part of the world when the email concerning my first submission to a literary agent arrived in my inbox. To my surprise, my often-dramatic heart did not palpitate. My palms did not itch and my stomach did not flutter either. Not sure how, but I was as stoic as, well, someone who was diametrically opposite to me. Calmly then, I opened the email to find my first ever rejection from a literary agent. Unfortunately they could not offer me a representation, they began. Due to the high volume of submissions, they could not provide specific feedback. However, they explained, it could just be that my novel did not match their personal prefe

Dream’s lucidity cannot be priced or prized in so far as enlightenment is to concern itself by being too concerned with all those expensive feelings that cannot be prised from my tight fists, feasting upon your treasured robots.   ‘Intention is everything,’ you say through your remaining robot, not looking me in the eye when I confront you about your stale hypocrisy that tepid heart toys me in its touch engrossing itself in the game called ‘still caring’, pretending, not caring that I have stopped putting a price tag on your, in hindsight, not quite expensive, copy-pasted words.   Solemn still waters in that preserved, artificial self energetically claim that every time you say you believe in me, I am right to believe that you mean it, meaning irrespective of the untruth, you demand the benefit of my, not quite doubt, out, so I won’t accuse you of causing me unduly pain, shutting me up in the most efficient way you can think of.   ‘Show me th

   You and one of your best friends have been through so much together – at least she says so. The ride hasn’t always been easy – there have been so many ups and downs – but you have emerged from those experiences with a deeper understanding of each other, or so you have thought, for all too long. She’s said she’ll be there for you – not once – and she has even gone so far as sending you an image-based text that reads, ‘I don’t want to lose you.’ But lose your trust she does by semi-ghosting you – and yes, that is still ongoing… Because of the absurdly intricate subtlety of that act and because of your former closeness, you have been in denial about the semi-ghosting for, hmm let’s see, about three years now. It has only been two weeks since you’ve started grieving for the particular loss, after a close friend has shared her experiences of what your light-bulbed brain has, without skipping a beat, termed ‘semi-ghosting’. Initially, you haven’t a clue where that term comes from – you