Lost For Words

by Stephanie Butland

A book is a match in the smoking second between strike and flame.

I like that there are some words on a page that are important enough for someone to have earmarked them.

I went to the river and I sat by the water and I thought; Loveday, it might be okay.

There’s the simple love of books, of course: the knowledge that here is an escape, a chance to learn, a place for your heart and mind to romp and play.

I remember the words were crammed on to the pages like sweets in a jar.

What’s the point of a book that isn’t read?

allow yourself to relax, traveller, we are fractionally less judgemental up here than we were downstairs.

A bit like, if you like books, you have to read Great Expectations at some point, and then it’s done and you can move on.

I think I was tearful because of the simple confusion brought by the sudden changing of a rule that I didn’t actually know was changeable.

Mum would look over the water as though it might disappear if she didn’t keep an eye on it.

I could pretend that I was enjoying the sun, which was something that adults seemed to consider a worthwhile use of time.

if you ran a restaurant of course you would charge more for the rare things. But you wouldn’t up the price of a fishcake depending on how hungry people were.

I loved that book because it showed that love was complicated, and even when it didn’t go to plan, it could still be real.

I’d like to think that adults could have conversations, even about things that had started with childish tattoo overreactions, and if he’d offered tea or an apology, I would have accepted.

If I jump, I’ll drown. If I stay, I’ll burn. So I stand there, and I’m waiting to see what happens first,

‘And be brave, Loveday. Ask the questions you want to ask. Seek out the people you want in your life. It might not be as hard as you think.’

Better to be whatever I had become; better to be in a place where I knew where the margins were.

I had the full cartoon zigzag, right across my bloody heart, and looking at him, I felt every ragged, blazing millimetre of the cut.

I wasn’t a fully functioning human being either. But, be honest: are you? Is anyone?

I realised that what was keeping me going was not acceptance, but hope. I didn’t know whether that was good or bad.

I suppose I was jumping off a cliff: it was all about making my feet do the opposite of their instinct for firm ground. I guess I’d assumed that once I was in the air I wouldn’t have to make any more decisions.

It turns out if you take a step then someone else will match it