Brooke Boland

Brooke Boland lives and works on Yuin Country in regional NSW. Her work has appeared in Meanjin, Overland and the Sydney Review of Books. Her non-fiction collection, Gulp, Swallow: Essays on Change, is published by Upswell.

Articles

Maiden, mother, monster

My son worries that a monster will come at night. This is a new concern of his, and I try not to connect it to his father’s absence. As I tuck him in, I tell him not to worry because the truth is monsters are very scared of mothers and won’t come anywhere near me. I’m too terrifying, I tell him, making him laugh. And cats too, I add, as ours curls at the foot of the bed, watching us. My son closes his eyes.

Buy, recycle, repeat

The tip shop creates a vacuum of sentimentality. This only adds to the thrill of the hunt, where the search becomes bigger than the thing itself. In that moment, time alters. The past and present merge and we step outside, just for a second, the familiar cycles of desire and need that shape our daily lives. For a moment, something can be treasured, even if the object of our fantasy exists only in our minds. We look for it in the piles of things people leave behind, searching through the rubbish; all we’re really looking for is ourselves. Reflected back to us are the rain-washed artefacts of our consumption that are lined up and sorted on pallets and old tables. The metallic shells of old fireplace flues, stacks of doors and aluminium windows, fishing nets and old tyres that fill the outside lot.

Share Contributor

Share

0 Shares

Brooke Boland

Articles

Maiden, mother, monster

Buy, recycle, repeat

Share Contributor

Never miss an edition