MA Creative Writing Archives

“Perceptions” – MA Creative Writing Take Over

Foreword

We perceive only ourselves. What we then perceive expands and contracts depending on what we take ourselves to be. Perception is what lies between what we see and what there is. All thirteen of us are a kitsch of experience, lived lives, and therefore, entirely distinct perceptions. The 2022/23 MA Creative Writing class have come together to explore their perceptions and how they view the world through various forms. Collectively, they have collaborated to produce their very own anthology, a pile of work that holds individuality while retaining a sense of togetherness through unintentional crossing themes. Here are thirteen mirrors. Make of the reflections herein what you will.

Meet Our Writers

Lily Mordaunt (she/her)

I Am not your inspiration porn

Khadijah Hassani (she/her)

Let Me Tell You About My Cardigan

Ines Platten (she/her)

Analgesia Exhibition

Casey Dexter (she/her)

A Very Lucky Day

Nishat Rahman (she/her)

Blink. Blank. Belong.

Alif Hoque (he/him)

Prosopagnosia

Melisa Ozer (she/her)

Shadow Play

D. H. Dhaenens (she/they)

Headlights Like Stars

Luana Pontes (she/her)

External Validations

Sofia Freitas Andrade (she/they)

She Stops the Noise

Dora Maludi (she/her)

Everything Tasted Gorgeous

Janis Levy (she/her)

The Calculated Chill Beneath Hollywood Heat

Ananya Chaturvedi (she/her)

The Ordinance of MadnesS

All the writers' signatures. — All the writers’ signatures.

Acknowledgements

We would first like to start off by thanking everyone who took part in this anthology, and everyone that was involved in the making and producing of this group project. We hope we’ve made you proud, and hope you love it!

A special thanks to Aris, for the beautiful cover page of the printed anthology and for taking everyone’s ideas on board, it was an important factor that made everyone happy. Rupert, who has always been a reliable and kind person, thank you for helping with the digital side of things, but also for your efficiency. Brian, for being there to listen and give advice when we got stuck, and remaining interested in our anthology, while also walking us through his classes, simply because he cared. And, of course, Nisha, because without her none of this would be possible – thank you for listening to our concerns and being so easy to talk to; your guidance and feedback meant each lesson gave us something we would not have otherwise had, and our workshops meant that we were able to discover what suited us as individuals and us as a group. These moments that you’ve given us will (forever) be unforgettable.

I Am Not Your Inspiration Porn – Lily Mordaunt (she/her)

The work below is by Lily Mordaunt as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

Pulse pounding, I pull an earpiece from my ear. There’s no stopping the body’s reaction to being grabbed, but this moment is nothing new. My mind is calm.

“Come, you can cross the street now.” This voice is slightly accented and low-pitched, but it could be any voice. Any accent. It’s the usual song and dance.

“I know, I’m fine, thank you.”

“I’m just trying to help you.”

I never said you weren’t. But I’m:

Waiting for a friend.

Checking my map.

I knew I could cross but wasn’t sure if there was enough time left.

Or I did need the help, but I am resistant, because you started with grabbing and tugging.

“Oh, my God, watch-”

The ding of my cane hitting a pole accompanies the light jolt through my arm. I walk around it.

They catch up to me. “You almost walked into that pole!”

But I didn’t. My cane alerted me to its presence. Unfortunately, the range on my cane is only five or so feet, not twenty. Alternatively, I might have bumped into it. It would have been

unpleasant, probably. But neither situation warranted you telling me how terrifying it must be to be blind. That you could never handle it. Aren’t I frightened like, all the time?

“How does she do that?”

“She’s actually very pretty for a blind girl.”

“How’d she know to walk around that garbage can? She ain’t blind.”

Instances like these always fascinate me.

There’s this prevailing myth that a blind person’s hearing is heightened to superhuman levels. But even as those assumptions are being made, there’s a warring idea that I, and those strange creatures like me, can’t hear a thing. Or just, you know, not whatever it is that you wouldn’t want the subject of the discussion to respond to.

The perception of the blind is twofold: part infantilization, part terror. The former comes from, I think, not knowing how to approach a Blind in the wild. Being unable to see, many feel, is an insurmountable barrier. How would one get a Blind’s attention? A touch on the arm seems too simple a solution. And then what would one even say? They can’t play sports, cook, watch TV. Clubbing is definitely out of the question. And you expect me to believe they’re having sex too? How would they even know where the parts go? Besides, don’t they speak braille or sign language or something?

The latter—a feeling of terror—I believe, stems from a fear of what one’s life would be like as a blind person. That’s why everything a Blind does is inspirational. Not because we all have similar social pressures, and, while the activities may need to be modified, something like the need for a degree (depending on what you want to do) is required. Actually, the need for a degree might be more important in the blind community when you learn about how high the unemployment rates are. There’s a greater chance that employers (might) take a chance on you.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t inspirational blind people; the person who managed to make it out of a war-torn country, for example. But the very nature of our existence—despite how it may feel when nothing around us is accessible—is not an automatic cause for reassessing your own life’s meaning.

“She moved to London by herself? Regular people are afraid to do something like that.”

Blind or not, moving to a new country is definitely a feat. Admittedly, there may be more challenges for me: learning a new transportation system, getting comfortable with new street crossings, navigating new accessibility policies. But I also think that those challenges are just… different. Since I move to London for school, I have a home base on campus from which I can branch out as I get more comfortable. For someone else, disabled or not, they have to learn the ins-and-outs of a new job culture while looking for housing, and also getting accustomed to a new transportation system.

I unfortunately have a tendency toward downplaying accomplishments—well, for a number of reasons, I think—but one of the main ones is because it’s often looked at only through the lens of my disability. But blind people—disabled people in general—are people. We are not your inspiration porn. We have jobs, children, are artistic, analytical. We can be assholes, saints and everything in between.

Surrealist artwork with a cream background and thick brush strokes in shades of yellow, olive and purple.

Let Me Tell You About My Cardigan – Khadijah Hassani (she/her)

The work below is by Khadijah Hassani as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

There is a cardigan that I have launched in the back of my wardrobe, and my mother told me to keep it safe.

It was sky blue and had mismatched buttons, and I listened to her until I didn’t. That cardigan was so precious and smelt of cinnamon and home, but it didn’t mean as much as it used to by the time I hit fifteen. It carried a weight that felt like drowning and sad stories and so many “almost(s)” that could have happened. I sat with a friend one day, and I let him touch my cardigan. He said it was soft, that it felt like lilies and comfort and that feeling you get when you’re dancing in the rain with someone you love. Who knew someone could be so poetic?

I said I was starting to hate it. That it reminded me of missing people and my mother’s glare and the hatred that seeped through whenever I thought of my father’s rage and his desperate need to be loved. I have that need, it climbs through in my words when I tell someone they look pretty or when I hug someone a little too tightly; thinking they need the same amount of affection I so once needed. My father had a way of showing his love in the way most of the men around me did, by shaming and staring and pressing me against cold stairs.

So, I gave my cardigan away. And it felt like those cold stairs, as if I’d lost something important, similar to the way I lost the love my mother once had for me. She now looks at me with tactile disappointment and disgust – “you can’t find your cardigan?” it was so special to her. It meant so much to her, my cardigan. How could I discard it so quickly? Just like she had once done; my father stole her only joy, the only thing that allowed her to love things, she warned me about it from the age of four. Told me not to make the same mistakes she did, because now look at her without her cardigan. She’s cold and lonely and the colours don’t seem so bright anymore and none of the puzzle pieces fit into place.

“Did you ever want to be a mother?” I sometimes asked.
Sometimes she replied in stares, and other times she would say: “Some people aren’t meant for mothering. I always wanted a daughter though.”
“Weren’t you scared I’d ruin my cardigan like you ruined yours?”
“Of course. And I was right.”

That cardigan meant nothing. It was damaged, so it had to go anyways, even if no one else could see the seams falling apart. And if I happen to get a new cardigan, I don’t think I’d be able to keep that one intact either. It all seems to lose itself after a while, maybe I get bored of my cardigan, or maybe my cardigan gets bored of me. Either way, I’ll lose it again.
My cardigan might belong somewhere else, it never did know what it wanted, but even if I did get a new one, it would never be able to replace the old one. The only comfort I have is knowing that vultures are always seeking food, and they’ll lick and rip at everything that breathes. They’ll wait until you’ve tired yourself out so that the feast will be easier to scoff down. Even if it is just a damaged cardigan.

Don’t worry, mother, hungry creatures never ask questions.

Analgesia Exhibition – Ines Platten (she/her)

The work below is by Ines Platten as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

i.
In a dream I find myself in the lobby of some student accommodation building. The social occasion is actually happening here, in front of the lifts. The walls are cardinal red, the carpeted floor some shades darker. In the corner, there’s an armchair with almost the same colour. People materialise in the time that it takes me to notice my surroundings, but I know I wasn’t alone before. I know these people, they’re familiar, in the brute sense, but I couldn’t tell you who they were exactly. The talking feels like it never actually began, it’s like I just tuned into it happening. I look down… am I naked right now? The air starts thinning and the walls swell and sweat hot, sick acidity. Drowning, demented screeching from another room. A saxophone, maybe? I don’t remember what’s being said. Whenever I look at someone speaking, they’re completely detached, their speech becomes shapes that hypnotise them. I try to scamper away but every time someone different catches me. I realise that they are all moving around me like clockwork, vaguely intrigued, laughing.

ii.
I’m in the shower for the second time today. I feel around for swollen lymph nodes, but then the chemically treated water starts to envelop me in its journey downwards, the rushing sound extinguishing everything in the world.

The street lights turn on and he opens the door, and stops.

“You know, I wouldn’t even mind if you put on a bit of weight. If you trained your glutes as well, you’d look amazing.”

I don’t know how I would exist if my brain didn’t know to chronically anaesthetize me. I don’t know how people exist with emotion. Being numb is tiring but it’s kind of okay in the end. Life at a distance isn’t living but it works. Living here would kill me.

“So, do you think you’ll do it?”
“Babe, I can’t talk about this right now.”

“No, of course. It’s just that you have the perfect frame, just if you ever wanted to do fitness modelling or something.”

Being a doll is just the little price I pay for not really being here.

iii.
My brother Stan and I spend the afternoon in a cafe. He’s got a fresh trim for this party later tonight and he’s wearing his favourite faux fur Palace jacket. He laughs when he tells me how he queued up for 5 hours for these limited edition Nikes. He knows it’s absurd but it’s the also most important thing there is.

For context, I’m wearing the same hoodie I’ve been wearing for the past 3 days.

I struggle “getting it up” for life, I tell him. That numbness functions like a kind of erectile dysfunction, that while I’m not depressed anymore, the usual stimulus doesn’t do anything for me. Nothing gets me there.

“Just focus on getting those little semis, man. That’s all you’ve got to do.”

iv.
In the park, I’m slightly desperate to make something of today, if only with a short walk. It’s a small park, essentially a row of benches and a pond. An old man chucks crumbs at the ducks. I sit down on one of the four benches and look at the water, glazed. I see myself from above with my arms crossed and I feel a sudden, fundamental repulsion towards this thankless bullshit attitude. I actually can’t live like this.

I get up and rip bits off the croissant I brought with me, offering it to the mallards. The old guy looks up and gives me a nod and I nod back.

v.
Another dream. I’m in a church, a romanesque church, with a white interior. Walls unadorned, soft perforations of meridian light. Long haired, learned men fill the pews. I can smell frankincense but nothing is burning here and there is no priest. Someone is going down the aisle. It looks like me but it could also be someone else – her hair is darker than mine, and it goes all the way down to her waist. She’s naked, calm. I become her, and very slowly I walk past the men who have their heads bowed. On the altar is a silver chest with fine, fragile engravings; it has been around for a long time but only now is it fit for purpose. When I open it, I see that it is full of water. I turn around, only to see the old guy I saw yesterday look up and smile. Disinterested love. I get in, closing the lid. The darkness is whole and I hear only my breath.

A photograph of the railing of a bridge with a Buddha head on top of it.

A Very Lucky Day – Casey Dexter (she/her)

The work below is by Casey Dexter as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

Who says a story needs to be read top to bottom? Read from the top to bottom, and then bottom to top (paragraph by paragraph) for two different stories

Today was my lucky day.

The time was approximately 9:55 am. There was a bit of brown on my white shirt. I rolled my sleeve back and sucked in my breath.

I bought a coffee from some fake French-sounding place around the corner after finding a two-pound coin on the ground. I took one sip and promptly spilled it.

Calm down, man.

Staring at my phone screen, I did some deep breathing that those wacko therapists always tell you to do. This was the biggest interview of my life. If I nailed this, I would finally have a job, a career, something to complain about at the pub! I could not mess this up.

Not happening, not today!

The interviewer said do not arrive late! If anything, arrive extra early. Being on time isn’t exactly my thing, but I really wanted to put the effort in for the new boss-man. I also had a date later that I was feeling pretty excited about. I texted her to confirm the time.

Confirmed! A double whammy! God was clearly on my side. When it rains it pours, I guess…

A huge bus drove past the end of my driveway, its tires ploughing through a puddle, sending a tsunami-like wave of muck towards me. I closed my eyes and waited for the spray.

I ran my hands over my shirt, my pockets– there was nothing on me!

Before I left, I went to fetch the newspaper and locked myself out of my house.

It wasn’t a problem. I did panic for a minute though, but I was able to figure it out. And hey, I still looked good!

I was told to wear a black suit and a white shirt and a red tie. An interesting combination in my opinion. I wasn’t entirely sure I had those exact clothes in my wardrobe.

Resume in hand, I thought about what this job would be like—if my manager and I would talk football between calls, if I’d be able to go home early on Fridays. I guess that was all on the table now. Man, I just knew the role was meant to be mine.

I stood there, just outside the front door. Wishing, waiting, praying.

I was feeling really good.

A Very Unlucky Day

I was feeling really good.

I stood there, just outside the front door. Wishing, waiting, praying.

I was told to wear a black suit and a white shirt and a red tie. An interesting combination in my opinion. I wasn’t entirely sure I had those exact clothes in my wardrobe.

It wasn’t a problem. I did panic for a minute though, but I was able to figure it out. And hey, I still looked good!

Before I left, I went to fetch the newspaper and locked myself out of my house.

I ran my hands over my shirt, my pockets– there was nothing on me!

A huge bus drove past the end of my driveway, its tires ploughing through a puddle, sending a tsunami-like wave of muck towards me. I closed my eyes and waited for the spray.

Confirmed! A double whammy! God was clearly on my side. When it rains it pours, I guess…

Not happening, not today!

Calm down, man.

I bought a coffee from some fake French-sounding place around the corner after finding a two- pound coin on the ground. I took one sip and promptly spilled it.

The time was approximately 9:55am. There was a bit of brown on my white shirt. I rolled my sleeve back and sucked in my breath.

Today was my lucky day.

Shattered glass with a black background in white and yellow lighting

Blink. Blank. Belong. – Nishat Rahman (she/her)

The work below is by Nishat Rahman as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

Your Perception

“My Room” by Nishat Rahman – A room with a grey wall (right) and a light blue wall (centre) with a grey wood floor and fur rug. In the centre, there is a grey desk with various coloured objects surrounding and on it: crates of wool, knitted clothes, notebooks, folders, a Nintendo Switch, a laptop, reading books, recipe books, cups of pens, paint brushes and knitting equipment, a sketchbook and a purple chair. On the blue wall, there is a calendar and a Korean letters poster. On the left, there is a window, also grey, with the outside in colour. There are blue curtains and a vase with a single (coloured) rose in it.

Blink. Blank. Begin.

A fresh page, a clean canvas, a blank space. A place to fill with all your hopes and dreams tailored by your experience and emotions. A place to declutter the life that has been written for you. A place to be you. Only… are you really you?

Blink. Blank. Borrow.

Borrow time, a time that should be mine, but I sit and wonder, is it really mine? Fill in the gap, the hole, the mould, stay in the line but also be bold. Retell a story that’s never been told. An imposter is among us as we go about our day to day, wishing we knew how to stay, to live life longer, to be young forever. A master of disguise, a thief in broad daylight. Building a mask, make it thick, make it quick. Anything that prevents a reality check. Are you really you?

Blink. Blank. Blend.

A pen, your starting tool. Only now it no longer contains ink, but a magnet and wires. Only now the handle is made of wood and the tip is fine fibres. Only now you hold two, one in each hand with no intention to write. But to create in a way that is seen as old, yet gold. Only now the pen is no longer called a pen but called needles. No, a hook. A spatula. A knife. A keyboard. A controller. A pen, your pen, no, MY pen is no longer a pen, yet it still remains a pen as I create a mountain of things that hold no real meaning or value. A gimmick. A replica. A façade of perfected skills. A completed piece sits in front of me, asking one question: is this really you?

Blink. Blank. Fold.

Count your cards, check the deck, for life has many things planned ahead. They say you are in charge of your own destiny. You learn your skills. It is your free will. You make your change, but what if my change isn’t because of my skills. What if I’m a vessel, made to contain others’ efforts and abilities. Copy and paste, to imitate. Nothing I do is ever really from me, because it is not me who created. I’m merely a reflection. Staring at all the imperfections. Is this really me?

Blink. Blank. Count.

Count your seconds, your minutes, your hours. For it is your time being wasted on entertaining a
person who is a jack of all trades, who’s skills are none. But the imposter is among us, undecided on what they’ll do, what they’ll say that may give away their identity as the one who knows nothing yet knows it all. The fear to speak, to be heard, holds on tight to my vocal cords; the anxiety of exposing myself as unfit to sit among the greats, undeserving of any attention from those who paved their own, while I borrowed mine. The question painted in my own wasted blood, sweat and tears. Is this who I am?

Blink. Blank. Bleed.

Go with the grain while making your own. Colour your blank with a palette of your desire yet it is your desire that leaves your palette blank. Yearning for better, for more, left with a shade of indigo and crimson. Anger and frustration, sadness and loneliness go hand in hand with love and heart, pure and magical, synonymous in touch. But never perceived the right way because it is I who made the effort that translated the wrong way. Why are the curtains blue? Because I ran out of yellow paint, dipshit. But that is not what came out, rather a sequence of poetic analysis of emotions and phrases I would never have conjured up myself. My success is not because of me, but because someone else translated better and was able to see. Please, can you see me?

Blink. Blank. Complete.

Pressing the correct controls, twisting, wrapping, folding, beating, mixing the right way, the way I know to be right in order to succeed. To complete your piece with precision, no correction, just
perfection. That is the plan, yet why do I follow and feel like it is not by my hands? Not my time
spent. Not my “talent” taking lead. It simply is not me because I know all yet know none. My
mistakes shining bright, out in plain sight. I fit no mould, can’t be bold, see no hole, just the same phrase being told, “Do better.”

Blink. Blank. Repeat.

My Perception

“What I See” by Nishat Rahman – A glass paint palette with various shades of grey all over the glass with a big section with various shades of blue. In small areas, there is yellow, purple and brown paint.

The Unseen Process

@qmulsed
One of our MA students wanted to share her perception in a different way @Nishat Rahman #perceptions #collaboration #queenmary #masters #creativewriting #qmul #painting #university
♬ original sound – qmulsed

Prosopagnosia – Alif Hoque (he/him)

The work below is by Alif Hoque as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

«Prosopagnosia: a neurological condition characterized by the inability to recognize the faces of familiar people.»

To Malcolm,

You know, mummy really loved drawing as a child. I think I first started when I was about your age actually; it was a drawing of your grandpa… or at least of the more creative version of him I made up in my head. I even gave him a big Cheshire cat-like smile, which was totally inaccurate as he was rarely the type to express happiness with such clarity. I’m also fairly certain that his shape never resembled that of a potato with arms and legs wrongly attached, but it was a child’s drawing after all. Your grandpa was surprisingly fond of it despite all the problems, so it sort of became a household talisman until your uncle decided to cover the drawing with stickers. However, seeing my dad’s reaction was all I needed to keep making more, to the point that my drawings became a sort of unlikely collection over time. Though that particular one has been lost, I did manage to keep many others which I’m sure will give you a good chuckle as you skim through them. (Wonder if you’ll recognise someone?)

Looking at you now, I wish I had carried on. How I would’ve loved to have drawn a good picture of you! Not so much for myself as much as for you. I bet I could capture you in a way no picture or video ever could; in a way that, perhaps, would help you see who you really are. It’s a wonder how, for someone yet so young, your face conceals a number of stories. You have the same chestnut hair and tanned complexion as your father, but your expression often reminds me a lot of your uncle when he was a child. The small curls at the edges of your mouth are very much mine, as are your small flat nose and the green-brown eyes. Somehow, you managed to get the best out of both parents you little devil. They say that those who are pretty in their childhood lose their charm as they grow older… but I really don’t think that’ll be your case.

God, imagine I had made an art book out of our best moments together! I’m thinking of a drawing of us in Camden Town, capturing the way you adorably snuggle up to me and daddy, refusing to let go because you’re so afraid of losing us. Maybe even one of the time we took you to Palermo, daddy’s hometown, and you finally met nonno Filippo and nonna Rosangela for the first time. My personal favourite would be one of you alone, surprised at your own reflection, slamming the mirror trying to catch the mysterious objects floating around your empty face. It’s such a wonderful idea… at the very least, I would’ve been able to leave behind something far more significant than a few letters. A lot has probably happened by the time you get to read these letters, but I hope they will help you piece together the tiny fragments of memory still within you. I’m sure you’ll be able to do it, my little detective Conan.

By the way, I forgot to mention it in my last letter but I finally found the courage to dye my hair for the first time. I choose a wine-red mahogany colour, kinda similar to that of dark cherries. It may look kinda punkish, but I think it turned out well overall. It kinda makes me wish I had done this before now… but late is better than never I guess. Your dad seems to also like them (though he seemed slightly unsure about it when I first told him). I would love to tell you that I’m not worried, Malcolm. Truth is that I’m having a really hard time keeping things in check right now. I guess as much as I’m writing to you, this is more of a letter for myself in the end. It’s the only way I can think to help me come to terms with what will happen from now on. This is letter number 13. I often ask myself how many letters I have left but I’m afraid you already know the answer to that.

Love you always,

Mum

PS: I try to pull your ears whenever you refuse to eat, but you keep turning away; perhaps that will become something to remember me by.

Shadow Play – Melisa Ozer (she/her)

The work below is by Melisa Ozer as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

Violet lids and rouge-dipped fingertips
I wish I was more like Narcissus
Or a philosopher-king
For no one limits me more than myself
Trapped in this Platonic cave of mind
My perception of myself fell short
Of the reality
Of whom I so desired to appear as to the world
One who could write
& breathe
& love unforgivably

Chained to this wall, the shadows dance before me,
Their figures taunt and flicker in the fire light,
Crackle, spit
Before me lay a pool of water,
My chains only letting me lean forward so far
My reflection distorted in the ripples,
One side bigger than the other
Shimmers by my eyes
Are they tears or crushed stars?

Violet lids and rouge-tipped fingertips
I wish I was more like Narcissus
At least in some shape or form,
Be able to love myself
I press my nails into my cheeks
Marking crescent moons
From the night I cannot see

There is so much that I do not know:
What does it mean to be Good
& Beautiful
& the true Form of Myself

I lean in closer to the water
Until my eyes grow clearer
The lines of my face more distinct
The reflection and my hand
Touch fingertips
Almost as if I could be reassuring myself
I will break free

I lean in
How long have I been trapped here for?
Closer, closer,

Closer –

Sketches of two hands reaching for each other across two overlapping pages

Headlights Like Stars – D. H. Dhaenens (she/they)

The work below is by D. H. Dhaenens as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

I’ve had my eyes dilated before.

They always recommend the same things: don’t drive to the appointment, bring sunglasses if it’s sunny, allow a few hours for your eyes to return to normal.

Drip, drip. Chemical tears, the promised stinging as the liquid starts working. The doctor gets uncomfortably close to put in the liquids, and it’s a weird intimacy even though it only lasts two seconds. He will see what my face looks like with tears streaming down it even though we’ve never met.
“Go wait outside for twenty minutes,” he says curtly. Very specific, but I know it’s never just ten minutes.

I try to read a book while I wait for the doctor to call me back in, but I can’t focus my eyes. I check my pupils in a small mirror. David Bowie with a bad hair day stares back at me. One pupil is huge, the other is still just as small as ever. Should have really combed my hair, but I was in a rush. The book is put away and I just listen to the tv in the waiting room. The same video explaining cataract surgery is played so many times I think I can do the surgery myself by now.

An idea for one of my writing projects pops up, so I take out my phone. I look like an old lady as I peer at my phone under my glasses and take notes. They will be riddled with typos, possibly illegible, but I didn’t bring a notebook. I doubt I would be much better at cursive though. My handwriting is terrible on the best of days.

Back into the examination room we go.

“Look over my shoulder. Look to your right. Look to your left. Look down at your nose.”
Lustrous lines of light scan over my eyeballs, invited in by my incapacitated irises. A larger door to my soul.

“The spots on your eye are just scars, probably from an infection when you were a kid,” the doctor tells me. That’s that mystery solved; I suppose.

“So, an infection?” I pry for more information, but I just get a one word reply and an invitation to leave.

Outside, the dark is a literal sight for sore eyes. I put my glasses up and get Google maps to read out directions to the bus stop. It’s a lifesaver – I walk around with headphones on, Google tells me where to turn, and nobody around me can tell that I can barely figure out where I’m going. I can’t read billboards, I can’t read. Flou, we would call it in French. The world is flou.

The headlights of the cars look like stars in the city nightscape, and I look around until I see a green or a red star. A traffic light. I take the long way around and wait for the green to cross, minimising my chances of being hit by a car. I refuse to become a ghost in this outfit. The bus is too bright. Trying to shield my eyes, I see a pair of bright pink rain boots on the woman next to me.

Wife asked me to pick up peppers for pickling. I head into Tesco. Somewhat belatedly I
realise I probably shouldn’t be walking around with my headphones on now that I don’t need directions anymore, seeing that I barely can see anything. But Ice Nine Kills and Placebo have always been my soundscape for such outings. Brian Molko singing in French is too much of a vibe. I’m in my own little world, barely seeing what’s around me, listening even less.

My eyes will go back to normal in a few hours, or at least the extremely short sighted normal I’m used to. At home, at last, I hear my cat snoring.

White with neon back light split keyboard on a light brown desk.

External Validations – Luana Pontes (she/her)

The work below is by Luana Pontes as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

‘The profile we create for others is shaped by our own personality’

Angles of Incidence: the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection is always equal

I refuse to be narcissistic in nature. I don’t like the idea of watching myself die because I haven’t conquered what it means to self-love. I am my own flower. My bedroom is dimly lit, so I rarely have the pleasure of watching myself through the mirror. All I see is a figure sunken in the shadows. I find it is their way of protecting me from what they see.

Hot water is frozen still over a pane. Steamy, it glazes over the iced sheet. Cool and plane. It stands in every cluttered corner of this home, and equally distant to every object lying before it, this overseer is my virtual reality. I am reminded with every passing, of my maternal figure. I am watching pain project onto these different screens. Talking to the object, I know that it is only erect because I have made it so. I have stood in front of its light and made my obnoxious presence known. I know this because when I talk, it doesn’t talk back. It stares. There is a barrier trying to hold up its walls, and I attempt to knock it down, tapping the glass only for its exterior to give me a clammy cause.

Incident Sound Signals: a sound transmitted in order to convey information

I refuse to be mocked for my crimes. I don’t like the idea of having my voice being caught by the winds because I have only conquered what it means to love others. I am my own echo. My bedroom is dimly lit, so often I have the pleasure of listening to the empty bell that rings inside the mirror. All I feel is the reverberation dying out, whispering away. I find it is their way of telling me what they hear.

What I think is marble and stone is curved and carved into. Protective, it defends my nervous walls. Hyperaware and still. It sits in every empty park in the world with only grasses of green and trees so that it is not tempted by the flushes of a nearby stream. I am reminded with every re-peat, of my compassion for others. I am understanding what it has meant to submit myself to others. Speaking through the object, I know that it is only erect because they have made it so. I have listened to its light and been taunted by its tone. I know this because when I talk, it talks back. It insults. There is cruelty keeping it up, and I attempt to knock it down, waging war against the rock only for its shell to cave in on me and fall.

The Intersection: an afterword from a point at which two or more things intersect.

Mirare, Mirari. To look at and wonder upon admirably, respectively. A caution. In theory there is only human bias and human error. Before the presence of a mirror you are your worst. In its absence you are almost your best. Echo, Echoe. To echo is to sound and to curse, grudgingly, perhaps conveniently too. In theory there is no true echo. Ring once and there is candour. But beneath the ring it will always softly alarm again. And so, the point at which these two reflections meet, is the point at which you realise neither are inescapable because they are replicas of each other.

A two-page collage spread consisting of various pictures of people, flowers and writing. Left page - text excerpt on brown paper, an image of a black woman with white smudges covering her face, a handwritten sentence on floral paper and a flower drawing in gold, all on brown and blue paper. Right page - photograph of a flower, flower drawing in gold, two printed images of painted women on brown paper, a handwritten note and a title - "Romanticise me", all on blue and floral paper. — A two-page collage spread consisting of various pictures of people, flowers and writing. Left page – text excerpt on brown paper, an image of a black woman with white smudges covering her face, a handwritten sentence on floral paper and a flower drawing in gold, all on brown and blue paper. Right page – photograph of a flower, flower drawing in gold, two printed images of painted women on brown paper, a handwritten note and a title – “Romanticise me”, all on blue and floral paper.

She Stops The Noise – Sofia Freitas Andrade (she/they)

The work below is by Sofia Freitas Andrade as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

I remain a reflection of everyone I’ve ever loved—
Searching for myself in the ocean of sore memories and fervid desires.

Looking out the window of a busy South Western Railway carriage, I am suddenly confronted by my own tired guise.
Tired barely scratches the surface.
It stares right back at me—
Its lips move but I don’t recognise them as my own—
Numbing.
The unfamiliarity disturbed me.
I’m not sure who I expected to see if not myself.
I mediate in this limbo; disconnected, disowned and gone.

The three-hour journey back that isn’t real—
Heavy boulders in my chest force me to sink into the patterned chairs and then once more in the blistering shower when I arrive.

Tears overstay their welcome despite vowing not to cry.
I cry every single fucking time I leave my girlfriend.
Shattered promises in a broken home that isn’t really a home.

Everything becomes so turbulent again the second I tear myself away from her and walk onto the dreaded platform.

The same overused headphones are crowned on my head and I am reminded of the abnormal lack of music I listened to over the week away.
Her presence alone renders all of my favourite songs futile.
It’s like the time I went to see My Chemical Romance in May and dedicated my chopped singing during Summertime to her.
I remember foolishly asking,
“Why did my mind go to her?”
The lyrics are, “turn my headphones up real loud. I don’t think I need them now.
Could you stop the noise?”
The song that meant nothing to me at fourteen suddenly had me kicking my feet at twenty-two.
She stops the noise.

With the smell of comfort—
Autumn candlestick wax.
Burning goop dripping onto bare skin.
Lukewarm in the folds of my flesh.
White hot chocolate syrup gentle sweetness—
Forever associated with the beverage I bought for her on that frozen night,
When the hanging street lights allowed us to embrace the night.

Caramelised daydreams and lavender longing, inhaling peace and turning blue.
I miss the golden skies and quiet midnights.
London has never felt more irrelevant.

Two decades and a couple of years of living with my vessel exposed and raw.
Numb to the loveless reality—
Without a muse.
Without a purpose.

It all felt in vain until June of this year and then—

Waking up didn’t prove to be such a conflict.
Reigniting my tortured soul with every visit.
I miss it all now and my yearning is so obvious except to the strangers in my kitchen who feed me but do not love me enough to say so.
Anyone near becomes contact-high from my happiness.
I miss her.
The caregivers who have the nerve to allow me to greatly resent their decorated and disguised rejection, framing me as the villain who asked for too much.
The criminal who craved understanding.
Craved attention.
The one who’s angry and demanding and overbearing for crumbs and fragments of compassion and mercy and comfort and love and just one sign and it can be subtle or as obvious as spoken words and I beg on my scraped velvet knees for an intimation—

Perceptions—
A depressed daughter who’s distant and dejected while being a secret lover whose warmth can be transcribed and carefully kept inside the draw of her bedside table in Portsmouth.
All of our love poems drafted with my aching heart bleeding onto the lined pages where I learned to write about hope for the first time in my life.

Car side mirror with a reflection of the night time city view.

Everything Tasted Gorgeous – Dora Maludi (she/her)

The work below is by Dora Maludi as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

It came from happiness,
I kept swallowing air
Burnt sugar dancing
In the cool English summer

You’re probably thinking about diabetes
You’re probably thinking that this sweetness won’t last for long, but a night with it is enough to carry into the next morning.

I drank the fair of all of its colour and still found myself wanting more
Sweet surrender on the peak of the Ferris wheel
Tasting all of your anxieties, the jubilation of the people beneath us
Let me have more

We did not need to re live through iPhone photography but
His story was a blurred photo of him, presumably dancing, in the middle of a supermarket car park. The streetlight luminated him in such a way that made him appear as unreal.

A Two-Part Episode About Flying

Part One

Always jumping through to 3 because my legs told me to, since it was the closest thing to flight for our restricted forms that didn’t know fear, into the sandpit, into to the makeshift bed, floating, on the train back from Willesden the steps towards the house were reminiscent of gliding, no, I soared home with intensity, and when I was high alone one day I scoped through Waterloo Station and only then could I begin to grieve, all of this life and you’re below or at some heavenly height, how us being in the same house gave me gravity.

Part Two

Us humans, obsessed with acts of defying, comprising manufactured air time, will see very small of the sky within our own means, teleporting our bodies out into the clouds because we just learned one day that we could, your country will Capitalise on suspension, limit what our bodies have always wanted. There is a point where we’d resort to illegal flight which felt even better, this taste of departure we should abandon by law does not keep the tastebuds from wanting, all our bodies by these clouds,

No wings,
featherless,
Just pleasure.

The Calculated Chill Beneath Hollywood Heat – Janis Levy (she/her)

The work below is by Janis Levy as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

Queen Mary clock tower, made up of Q’s & M’s to form Gridlock Impressionism, with the time 17:13 (Q is 17th letter & M 13th letters of the alphabet) – Janis Levy

Actor Unseen, Behind the Scenes

Meringue gazed through the window of her charming apartment,
south of Sunset, between views of El Palacio on Fountain where
Marilyn Monroe once lived, and Villa Primavera on Harper,
where Gloria Grahame shot In a Lonely Place.
How apt.

Meringue Pavlova wasn’t her real name. The carefully chosen
moniker was the name on her SEG, SAG and AFTRA union cards,
PKA-ed onto her passport, kitten covered check book, driving
license and social security. She wanted a scrumptious name,
one everybody wanted to devour.

Meringue was fed up and hadn’t heard from her agent in weeks,
despite constantly touching base. ‘Hi Harry, just checking in,
did you hear back from that casting director, you know the
one, what’s his name again? The one who said how terrific I……’
at which point Harry would interrupt, slamming her with yet
another charming response, ‘Fuck off Meringue, I’ll call when
somebody gives a shit.’

Still, she refused to let anything interfere with her self-
maintenance schedule. Gym, facials, Brazilians, liposuction,
Botox, fillers, highlights, extensions, root definition,
augmentation, teeth whitening, Pilates (so boring, she already
spent way too much time on her back). Having zero control over
casting herself, (serious, meaty, character roles), Meringue
was in control of her bathroom habits, thanks to psyllium
husks, colon cleanser and dandelion cocktails.

She worked part-time in trendy boutiques on Melrose, a WeHo
pizzeria, (unusual pizzas, kimchi, matzo ball, chicken fried
duck) and an agency who sent her to accompany men from out of
town to dinner. She thought they could be lonely in a strange
city and anyway, they might know somebody powerful.

Meringue longed to be adored. She suffered from If-You-Like-
Me-I’ll-Like-You-Back syndrome. Lugging her suitcase of dreams
from Hollywood Florida to Hollywood California, swapping the
Atlantic for the Pacific, she’d been in LA for seven years.
Through a variety of equally incompetent agents, working on
three guest spots on episodic TV (one as a dead bimbo and two
under-fives), two commercials (neither of which went
national), a forgettable scene in a forgettable feature, which
ended up on the cutting room floor, and a five day stint in a
play, in a so far off Hollywood Boulevard theatre it was
practically in The Valley. She was still struggling, trying to
get a powerful agent, book a pilot, perfect the perfect eight
by ten to catch the eye of a casting director instead of
lining the trash.

Constant rejection was something Meringue had strangely begun
to relish and use to her advantage. If ever she landed a role
for a ‘pretty, rejected blonde’ she wouldn’t even have to
research her character. She’d just slip into the role, like an
oyster slipping easily down your throat. If you liked oysters.
Which Meringue did not. She thought oysters looked as if
someone had blown their nose into a shell. Boogers on the
bivalve. Yum? But she mustn’t say anything for fear of
offending anyone, because everybody knew somebody who might
know someone influential. So, she kept her oyster musings to
herself.

Hollywood was nasty, she thought, gazing at the flagrant,
fragrant flowers looping through her balcony. She hated it and
everybody in it. Disappointingly, Hollywood was an insidious
city. It drew you in and spat you out like a cow with two
stomachs, chewing you up, sucking you down, regurgitating and
swallowing you all over again. You had to be so tough to get
out of Hollywood. Meringue was unsure that she could do that,
although she desperately wanted to go home to Florida, into
her mother’s arms and sit at her safe, faded kitchen table.
Impossible. For now.

Give it another six months. One more pilot season. Just until
the leaves turn gold. How absurd! LA was seasonless. Leaves,
devoid of colour change, remained emerald, envious, like the
people. Mindless, endless weeks turned into months that turned
into years. And Meringue was still here. Like Dixie the
waitress in IHOP, on the cusp of Sunset and the Big Time.
Dixie with her dusty, crispy, iodine hair. Lipstick edging her
creased mouth, lost in the furrows of her rouged cheeks. The
young, pretty thing who had come to Hollywood thirty-two years
ago filled with stardust fantasy, yet still yearning for a
break. Dixie’s biggest role to date was asking if you wanted
syrup or sugar with your pancakes.

Meringue knew that unless she found inner strength to escape
Hollywood, Los Demonios, one day she would be Dixie.

*Meringue Pavlova* acrylic on canvas by Janis Levy – a blonde woman with red lipstick, pink blush and red nail polish wearing a purple dress and a black feather boa, sitting in front of a green background with a black floral curtain.

The Ordinance of Madness – Ananya Chaturvedi (she/her)

The work below is by Ananya Chaturvedi as part of our MA Creative Writers takeover.

Sometimes
the Ganga cries

And fallen tears pollute its sadness

At times the stars reach the ghats of Varanasi, before I can. Tonight, they and I sit at the ghat as a silent audience to the crackling of the burning pyre, and the sadhu sitting across from it.
Playing his flute.

They say two things about the ghats of Varanasi – and one of them is that it sheds magic at night; so I run away every night from boarding school–

To come here. and collect it.

From where I sit, I can see steps drowning in the Ganga; I can see the mirage of men and women coming to this holy river; burning Dias for the new, burning pyres for the old, rinsing their sins, smiling at the facade.

The pyre next to me is too high. Someone must have just lit it. I can’t see the sadhu’s face. I only see his hair. Half of it is up in a bun, and the other half flows ruefully like the Ganga.

He stops playing his flute.
And then he swallows the silence with his song.

“There’s a violent restlessness within me. I simultaneously can’t live without you, Yet, here I am
Living.

I know that there was a difference in our love I loved only you
But
you loved me, too.

I have posthumous questions. All of them for you

If only I’d asked.”

He looks to the pyre as he sings. Who does he sing for? His love or someone who loved him? Why do priests say that those who want to love God cannot love another?

The blaze devours some of the wood.

I watch his eyes now.
I watch the fire echo in them.
But
I don’t see anyone.
The flute continues, the inferno dances. I look onto the river. There, in the distance stands alone fisherman’s boat, swaying with Ganga.

Is this the magic?
What would I do with magic?
The stone floor is cold, but the fire keeps me warm. The flute stops again, and he sings–

“If I had asked,
For you to understand my heart’s ache for you,
Maybe you would have loved me more than I love you.

If I had asked,
What you meant by “when you love someone hungrily,
you should know you weren’t ever destined to meet them. ”

What is that in his voice: is it sadness,
or is it a conclusion?

I want to know who he sings for. Did time build on his love, or did it turn to ashes? Did his yearning wake up in the morning before he did? I know a question has to be asked. For his answers to perish, finally. I have to muster the courage. Regret can’t be my companion, like it is his.

There’s an empty bridge in the distance, yet to be molested by the morning cars. The night is thick, but it will soon fade.

The pyre slowly begins its descent into nothing.

My mind is lulled by the sound of the flute. He’s playing it as though it’s his last tune. I wonder whether it’s his sorrow that consoles him, or the ganga,
Or the burning heart.

People move on but he seems to be falling back in time. I would want to do that too. Go back in time. Because moving on seems to be a cruel gift bestowed onto us. My mind and my heart, we have to know who burns in the solace of these woods, I have to know them, and what happened; I have to know so that

I never sit playing a flute next to a burning pyre. Sadness reigns in his heart when he sings again.

Only if I’d asked
“Will you come find me?”

The stars have left me. Ganga has stopped crying.

The flute’s sound ebbs away, the morning takes its place. A fisherman walks by me going towards his boat.

The last wood joins its brethren’s ash. Silence smiles at me. It is time for me to leave. But I have to ask. I will and finally do.
Who were they?” Someone begins ringing the bells in the temple. It seems that it’s time for God to wake up.

The sadhu lays his flute to rest: and sees. Sees me and the ash.

He gets up. Slow and steady. Walks over to me. Puts his hand on my shoulder,
and whispers

“I don’t know”.

The second thing they say about the ghats of Varanasi is that you’ll always find a mad man there.