The Konfessioner's word:

Novu is an absolute delight to read. A short piece of prose interspersed with poetry might sound irrelevant but she does it just right...

What more..! NM has become a total Novu freak...!

To catch more of Novu, visit her blog at http://novu.blogspot.com/index.html

-Nikhil Mahajan

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Author intro:


I'm Catherine and I was born and I live in England; a seventeen year old student with a love of art, especially that of the written word. I writeshort stories, poems and anything else that comes to mind. I see writing as a window to the world, an ocean of awareness.

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SOUL TUNNELS

I slide through another day of the one thing needful. I think my favourite colour is always changing. I don’t speak in riddles, actuality scorns my tongue. It’s not that hard to understand.

I didn’t write a film script; it scares a portion of my mind. Dialogue is not my strong point. I drew the pictures instead, and then painted more. I sat here turning the pages, wondering why I was reading it over again.

Acid rises in my throat
Burns like coarse nails
Scraping hard, jarring back
Into a stapled mouth

I walked along the edge today, where kingdoms are clay. I’m still wondering if this is my home. The cloud smiles. This town is grey, and I hate the monotony. Antique ruined streets run further than I can see, pigeons fly in their groups, smashing their faces into bus windows. They see in 12 frames per second.

I saw a grey squirrel with its eyes hanging out of their sockets. Someone moved it away from the side of the road so the cars wouldn’t ravage its body anymore. The kittens on my road got run over; I used to take them into my house and give them a drink before they would run off back home.

Averting gazes
See in constant perception
Echoes of forgotten sounds
Smiles from forgotten faces
This town breathes fumes

There’s a bouquet of flowers tied to a lamppost at the end of my road. Matt is dead, got too pissed and fell in front of a car.

The Indian man waits in the doorway of his restaurant, leers as I walk past. There is more scaffolding, a flashing image of an old friend falling through and breaking their skull comes to mind. I walked under the ladder, superstition never reached me. I cross each road, as mad car drivers stare, swerve, swear, stall. Billboards tell me to shop in M&S, go to France with Condor Ferries, and buy the new Hyundai. Struggle and fail.

Lunch in a pub, I sit watching the awkward faces of my relatives, the woman my father calls his fiancé talks about what she always talks about. I am drifting off in my own thoughts, and I smile, because the one I love is always there, a sigh of warmth in my heart.

Awful necklaces and earrings are passed around, and I am expected to wear them for my father’s wedding day. Camera flashes, atomic bright, catches my eyes. More photos, more fake smiles. I do not want to be here.

Fuck you
Hesitant scowls
Warning signs for you
Understand this, father
I’m not really here
You don’t know me anymore

I’d rather walk home. I leave as quickly as I chase words across this page. I listen to the nothing song, with a language written from emotion, with no meaning, but everything encompassed in a single voice.

I flick across pages, try to catch words, focus on images. I can’t find my breath without him, and I sit wondering, and worrying like I do. Love floats on a warm breeze, and I hope it reaches him, so far away.

The baby stretches, and yawns, smiling up at me as I tell her things about my day. She doesn’t need to understand. Her eyes, blue and guiltless, no judgment, only wonder. The eyes are soul tunnels, a window to a life. Hers has only just begun.

Walk behind the sky
I would move the sun for you
See more than I have
Fathomless depths are yours to feel
Light kisses from my swaying ocean
Sleep in my arms, this warm love
Speeds across the bluest skies

-Novu

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