Latest Posts
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ChatGPT therapist
The trouble with my human therapist is that she is not strapped to my side. I can’t ask for her help when I feel overwhelmed at work or when anxiety prevents me from sleeping. I have to stuff my hamster cheeks with troubles and vomit them onto her lap in a bi-weekly one-hour session. By Continue reading
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Living in a web
I have never done anything truly on my own, and I don’t believe you have either. When I walk home from work, I walk on pavement laid out by hands unseen, I stop at the traffic lights where the drivers wait for me, I walk through the park with grass green from watering. While I Continue reading
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I’m turning stupid
I have never been brilliantly clever. It is a fact I have come to terms with over the years. However, I have long prided myself on being thoughtful and interrogative; that even if I don’t know much, at least I look around with curiosity. But over the past couple of months, I have lost some Continue reading
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Gentleness and good humour
September is my favourite month, leaves fall from the trees, jumpers come back on. It’s the start of all things cosy. It feels like a new beginning somehow. Sunburn, eating outside and hay fever are gone and in comes boots, hot chocolate, the colour orange. I try to make September resolutions. I look back on Continue reading
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‘Planning’
I never used to think I had anxiety. I would lie awake at night and list all the things I needed to do the next day, the following week, the dawning year, and the unavoidable oncoming of the rest of my life. I would close my eyes and term it ‘planning’. And when the voices Continue reading
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If you love me, don’t repay your debts
There’s nothing I want less than to be even. I hope to always be on the back foot. I sat down at work the other day, and a friend had left a book I lent them on the keyboard. They were moving teams. Their desk was scrubbed of life, and there was the book, with Continue reading
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I love with my eyes
I love with my eyes. I love what I can touch and smell; it must be a hangover from foraging times. To me, people leave no ghosts, no trail of crumbs, no lingering scent. I love with my heart too, but I need my eyes to feel it. I love with my eyes because I Continue reading
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Welcome to Japan
I have often feared that when my mother dies I won’t feel Japanese anymore. First, my grandma will pass and we’ll sell her cluttered home in Kakogawa. It will be brought by a new family, cleared of her down to a stray eyelash and never set foot in again. Then my mother will die, and Continue reading
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Hungry Ghost
Hungry ghosts are creatures of insatiable greed. Through their button mouths, they feast on material goods whilst their bellies gorge to furthest extremity and then swell some more. Feeding does not satisfy; it only makes them more ravenous. Hungry ghosts originate from Buddhist mythology and remain a part of Japanese culture today. They feature heavily Continue reading
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Glory be to the Father
God has never been my flavour. He seemed inaccessible, foolish and trite. I’ve often regarded his celestial clairvoyance with suspicion. The mention of God would have me yawning and rolling my eyes. The name Jesus produced an instinctual smirk that could only be remedied by tautly puckering my lips so they wouldn’t ping up in Continue reading
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