this makes me so sad

i bring these sorts of situations onto myself. i know it’s there, but unfortunately i have to spend my time with it: the cord to the speakers won’t reach any further than this corner of the bed. i unwillingly spend my time sitting in the menses stain of a girl you loved before you knew my name, and there is nothing i can do about it. my feet, presently pressed against this tell-tale remainder of a night or day of unmitigated passion, singe with envy and shame. i can imagine it now: she’s come into town and you cannot control yourself; you lift her perfect porcelain legs onto your shoulders and fuck her on the edge of the bed. “sheets can be washed,” of course, but what about the mattress? what would have been food for the child she no doubt wanted to cull from your encounters spilled onto your first nice bed.

you’ll cry “histrionics! illogical emotions! private information whyareyousharingitontheinternet!” well, i work best in hyperbole; emotions are the antithesis of logic; and no one reads this shit anyway. so rest easy, my beloved. when my own life force ceases to hemorrhage, i’ll be fine again. i won’t lay awake, edging myself away from the splatter of physical love’s evidence. i’ll go back to pretending it doesn’t bother me. but until we buy a new bed, i will begrudge you and her alike for leaving behind even more proof that i am new, unworthy and insignificant and will remain so for years to come.

transmutation

i knew it was likely to come, as so very many other things do, with the changing of the seasons. the damage done by the heated madness of unending summer days flowed into the drainpipes of my city with the first thunderstorm of autumn. it’s in the air, in my skin, in my mouth, on the lips of everyone around me: autumn is here; let us rejoice! shed your woes and doubts, regrets and fetid desires!

bask in the cool night air and don’t be sweaty when you wake up in the middle of the night. only wake up in the middle of the night to grow sweaty with your lover. set your roots but keep your eyes on spring (why, it’s only right around the corner).

i have felt it finally reside in my heart. what was once an ache is now a mere tender spot that i never want to disappear. it will remind me always of how i allowed myself to be carved to shreds by possibility. as the sun sucks the color from my past and i perish upon the ground, remember that the mulch of my fallen favor will foster new growth for me–and also you–and everyone who was involved and even those who know not a thing.

less than one month

everything went at once: the shower gel bought in denmark, the loofah soaked in the scents of showers never mine, my dutch deoderant, my last plaster from boots. all that remains of my time in england is a pot full of the coins i once found so charming. it took less than a minute for every sensation to evaporate from my life. there no longer exists concrete proof that ever i was gone. maybe i never really went.

it took the daily reminder, the shellshock of my overactive olfactory sense, to prove that there ever was a time when i called england my home. even as i sip my smuggled tea, i am not put on the cowley high road or in chatham. it doesn’t taste the same without boiled-out limescale or fat english milk. so it isn’t the same.

so it goes.

classic

it always feels new, the process of liking someone–actually liking someone.  no matter how many times i’ve felt those first pangs of longing and curiousity, it’s exciting every time. i’ve spent a preponderance of hours exploring the eventual and infinite avenues a relationship could traverse; it’s seldom i’ve been in a situation that my mind has not somehow mulled into reality.

rare are the instances of matched intensity. i believe women generally posess a greater capacity to feel, a wider-ranging receptor for possibilities, and therefore are more disposed to fantastical daydreaming, scheming and over-reaction. i know i’m in for a treat when i sense a return volley, catch a shimmer in the glimpse of my chosen one’s eyes. detecting the ebb and flow of attraction and gauging mutual emotions is simply more fun when the other person is doing the same.

when we are alone at the bar, two twentysomething writers leading complementary and previously unentangled lives, i like to pretend that it belongs to only us. as i stretch my bony fingers across the cool green marble bartop, i imagine we painstakingly selected it ourselves. it is our menu, born from varied passions and keen knowledge. we saved our pennies to purchase wholesale the brewed and bottled ambrosia to suit our future clientele’s exquisite taste. the mountain of ice that you put into my well before i arrive is a physical manifestation of the great heights to which you have already traversed in the hope of winning my heart. as smoke swirls of our specialized blends of tobacco escapes our dry lips hungry for each other and hangs low under the dim light with the jazz music, i foresee a future not unlike the present.

something tells me you do the exact same thing.

a pink folder in the middle of my table

try as i might, my every action has you at its heart. even now that i’ve returned to a manageable distance, i try to find you amongst my old friends. of course you are not here for there are no cobblestones for your widespread feet, no dwindling daylight at half ten, no pings or train stations or closes. there is only sweltering heat, and even in this alien air, i feel you. when my breath falls to the ground and the trees who lured me back have settled in for a long season’s rest, i will find you again. this is not over. it never really began.

there are so many things to look at.

another jumbo jet rips through the 292 of twilight. we wave. i calculate that one day, i’ll look down from my window seat and see myself in my garden. i brush piles of soft ash from my black stockings. “seven years ago, who would have thought we’d be drinking wine in your garden in london?” i did. i’ve always thought that about everyone i’ve ever met.

hazy rays filter through wild vines. our pale skin glows in the alarmingly late light of shifted latitudes. sickly sweet syrah strains the corners of lips once touching. your cinematic adventures fold into my feature film and we do not miss a line. this is perfectly natural. you said it best: we are better than everyone else.

fat fuzzy bumblebees burrow into the hard grasses and dainty daises at our bare feet. we speak of the politics of our homeland and our collective hopes and fears for its future. we don’t have all the answers, but somebody should listen to us. splinters find their way into my thighs. slinky clouds blanket the darkening sky. you fall asleep on the cooling ground.

i pinch myself. the banal becomes remarkable here in london.

my favourite medium.

hyperbole

/hiperbli/

• noun deliberate exaggeration, not meant to be taken literally.

— DERIVATIVES hyperbolical adjective hyperbolically adverb.

— ORIGIN Greek huperbole ‘excess’, from ballein ‘to throw’.

don’t flatter yourself. i’m a fiction writer.

one day when you’re forty-five.

the blood that boils beneath my aching flesh mirrors the pantone of the colour emblazoned on every porous surface at anfield. my intimations have been gifted to the collective subconscious; together we can now absorb and destroy heartache. i shall “settle” with the very embodiment of my english ideal and never be satisfied because his imperfections do not match your own.

i have never been wrong. i will go home but i will never forget.

nice infection.

“Goalpost modernism, it’s as simple as that,” she said. The smoke from her cigarette gave shape to her observation. “It’s just a hat trick or treat.”

“Speak when spoken to, woman.” He snatched the smoldering stick from her fingers whilst keeping his muddy eyes trained on Match of the Day.

The statutory statues would never account for the leather straps or mouth bits that bound Jonkey and Jonty in their rodent states. Seven years her senior, Jonty reigned his brilliant former-muse through the failings of the court. Even if she left now, it was too late.

The programme switched to the eleven o’clock news, flooding their lounge with white light. A toupeed Tory proclaimed “we want two states: north and south.” Jonkey switched off the tellybox. “It’s an ancient debate.” Swilled Stella dribbled down Jonty’s weak chin into his ratty beard. His pupils contracted; their political alignments were not in accordance with a peaceful household.

“Listen, Jonty, I’m going to the pottery farm tomorrow with Drew Akers.”

“Bitch, are you tall?” He crumpled the empty can. “Can you know? He’ll have you for what’s for. No woman of mine will be seen in public with some lanky—“
“—LOOK! Do you smell that?” Synaesthetic reassignments proved most effective for diverting physical harm. Jonkey pointed her bony index finger to the sign tacked in the kitchen: Garbage Men of the World Unite! “Bin days are on Thursday, love, can’t you take out the rubbish before you head to bed?”

A corporal cornerstone afforded by staggering Council Taxes, smiling men with burst skin carted off the festering piles of half-eaten dinners, soured yoghurt and tin—cents which Jonkey could have been redeeming to accommodate her escape—each week. If Jonty took out the rubbish on Wednesday night, she could relax on Thursday morning—the only day of the week that Jonty actually bothered showing up at his big bank-roll firm in The City before noon. It was her time for reconstitutionization (she enjoyed most masturbating or going for a pedicure). Jonty’s job put pence in pants, helped them neglect poverty and all that, but every week followed the same protocol. Rinse. Repeat. Jonkey lived amongst wych elms and pigs teeth but dreamt of Howard Bast and his square bouillon. Whilst having terrible missionary style sex with Jonty, she fantasized about stair step style sex with anyone but him.

Exhaled air anounced Jonty’s arrival on the rawhide sofa. She never thanked him for taking out the rubbish; he never thanked her for anything. He riffled through the channels: Aderondacks taking a break – hear ye this! Flash. Electroshock blip blop Terry Tibbs TALK TO ME. Flash. Who shouted? Flash. Where’s the mayonaise? Flash. What are upstairs? Darkness. “I’m going to bed.” Jonkey was left alone in the shrouded secrets of suburban shame. She fell asleep on the sofa and did not wake up when Jonty left for work.

After coming three times in front of their wardrobe’s full-length mirror, Jonkey dropped into the velveteen chair by her desk and opened the only drawer. The thin compartment unfurled into her fingertips revealing a bone white journal. She opened it to last Thursday’s entry.

Dig deeper, there you’ll find
pieces of my shattered mind.

Abundant sleeper!
Just reach deeper:

Jew can doooooo eeeeeet.

Situation: now all fucked up
Windmill huts, round gravity

Prostyle

She laughed into her cigarette and turned to a fresh page.

Nimbly bimbly with his cap and cane
I watch my dandy on his walk of shame.

He blames the running of the bulls for all the blood
So why is it that I look like I goddamned crucifix?

Another dire wasted bank holiday
Another exploititive tiny sliver in the wall

My little broken fix-me-up, a good investment:
Better to have loved and lost?

Jonkey spread the magenta draperies. From her bay window, she could see the indigenous deciduous residents and their keep with yellow heads and white tails, fast vixens and silver streaks. She cracked the pane and let smoke signals drift through Hertfordshire.

Once upon a time, seven gargoyles drank. each had 6 beers. Each beer had five ice cubes. each ice cube was 4 ounces. each ounce was… gargoyles don’t exist.

Spent ashes mixed with fallen tears as she turned the page.

Sarah stepped out onto Blackfriars Bridge’s bloodcrimson abutement high above the Thames. She sliced the water in a perfect swan dive. Now she’s dead. The end.

Nearing birth, I wondered about a dead woman at the bottom of the ocean. I’ve never seen an ocean.

He cut off my big toes and still expects me to stand when I cook him dinner.

Her pen sputtered ink onto the lined pages.

Suffrage: why is it that no one talks about castration.
Aversive racism or graveyard shadows?
Prickled anecdotes are far from a “barn animal,”
And piqued flesh alters perception.

I’m sorry sir, but you’ve been given a prescription for giants.

Before her husband came home, Jonkey fucked herself two more times—once in the kitchen whilst pouring Stella over her taut flesh, once in the garden so her neighbours could watch. When Jonty came home, all he could say was “which one of you cretins drank my lager?”

Fingers pointed at fingers pointing at fingers pointing at faces—there was no right way out for her. She chewed her expensively adorned cuticles as he leafed through The Times, pretending to understand. Left is right and right is left but down can never be up; it might as well have been in newsprint.

It was a slow sprint that carried her down the gravel lane. Jonty watched as her slick shins dripdripdripped onto the chalky stones. Just as she passed the end of the drive, the gates slammed shut onto her well formed calves.

“Clink and clank,” he exhaled through his Cuban cigar. He ashed into the hair of the blonde bandaged girl hunkered in the steel cage beneath the coffe table. “Both of you always forget.”

(born from a sunday evening word association exercise with fletcher. find his [more traditional] version here.)

how long will it take you to find this?

once upon a time, a young woman moved across an ocean on the off chance of winning the heart of a boy. they are so good together, but together they are not. hilarious.

she does not understand anything at all.