BUT THEN AGAIN, WHAT DOES?

PARIJAH DIARIES 8 My life is a dream. That’s what it feels like, more and more. Has done for a while; the last few years, at least. Paradoxically, I think that’s how life should feel; how reality feels if you are actually in it. It’s a measure: the more you live in reality, the more […]

THE SEA BENEATH

PARIJAH DIARIES 7 I spent my first five years in a Legoland suburb of London at the end of the Piccadilly Line. I was born at home, 2am on a Tuesday morning, I believe, with a transparent membrane covering my head — a ‘cowl’, the midwife called it, explaining to my mother the traditional belief […]

LOST WAKINGS

Image: My Beautiful Apocalypse (detail) by Catherine Forsayeth PARIJAH DIARIES 4 /July 2020 Sometimes I experience a disorientation on waking, not knowing where I am. If something wakes me in the night or pre-dawn, I’ll lie there in the dark for a long moment, listening for cues and trying to arrange my surroundings around me. […]

LETTER TO A FRIEND IN PRISON

PARIJAH DIARIES 2 April 18 2020 Kriminalvården Anstalten Tygelsjö Skiftesvägen 10 218 74 Tygelsjö Sweden Attn: Xxxxx Xxxxxx Hallo my friend Well shit, if you had to go away for ten months for growing indoor plants, you chose the right time! We’re all in prison now. I don’t mean to minimise what you’re going through, […]

ūtland

PARIJAH DIARIES 1 It’s not very common in conversation, not in its original sense at least. People stick to ‘weird’, which is a whole other story, coming from Old English wyrð, meaning fate or destiny. You generally only see it when some hack journalist has been detailed to put down the latest outbreak of truth […]