exhale

i have.

eternally.

pulsated and done.

She would.

willingly.

pulsated and done.

I shooed.

hand waving.

whimsy and dry.

She showed.

heuristics wavering.

whimsy and dry. 

Bitter and Silent.

Aggressively Mellow.

Possessively Distant.

Upsettingly Clean.

She wiped all the pictures

and all they could mean.

my hair was pulled out

to reveal my bald head.

my kindred spirit ruled out

as the worst guidance ever.

the finger tips all burnt off

demanding a waver.

left in the dark

she examines the get out.

given bitterness to hope

she understands there's no option

to climb is to fall

and to walk is to panic

in a line we're all standing 

like a queue, all thematic.

instantly we are and aren't

instantly she is and cannot be

instantly she outshines and outscreetches and outshakes and outreaches and outbreaksup her face and outdamages tendons and outdreams of the end and outdoes you. she's better.

all moi (In Summary Part 2)

it wasn't you. it was all me.
i substituted everything problematic with my positivity for you.
it's never been you.
it's always been me.
plagued with unshiftable weight hats forever.
i tried to take them off but to be honest i don't quite know how big they are.
i asked you to tell me.
you got under them and looked at me with playfulness.
i asked you to tell me how big they are.
you kissed my forehead with certainty
i asked you to describe them to me.
you shook hands with me and locked your fingers around mine.
but i asked you how they are.
not to share them.
they are all mine.
not yours to carry.
really not yours to carry.
i'm not yours to carry.
i'm only yours to look at.
yours to believe in.
yours to remain.
my disorders.
all poured into a mould
that went on to mould my energy for you.
i used you.
carelessly and greedily.
but you kissed me on the cheek.
sturdily and with disappointment.
and then i caught your shadow with the corner of my eye.
and didn't understand.
you didn't understand.

{this is the fly's poem to the light, written in blue ink a year later.continued from 'In Summary'}
it goes with this song:

where

are you?

where?

did the rounds a million times just checking everywhere.

where

are you?

where?

looked in every crevice-cryptic-cleverclogs joke we've shared.

and didn't find you.

ah well. guess one of us has to stay put while the other is looking. you've obviously had that grand idea again and are stood in the farthest new place not looking at people, waiting for me to retrieve you.

ah well. you'll be waiting for a while. guess it was my turn someone found me for once. found me and said it. 'i found you'. and their toes really curled with comfort and their smile widened with the seriousness of what makes you guffaw and tears your heart out simultaneously and whilst undoing your popping button top they laugh at what's beneath it and profess salvation of their soul and inability to live outside your aura.

it's my turn now. but i think there is no queue and i'm feeling a little too 'on sale' parading around with my eggs all in this humongous basket made out of doilies, hearts and yellowing pages of romance novels scary ladies read on the beach whilst smoking long cigarettes. i should have listened to the academics amongst us warning me of expressing more than you can receive. but i honestly thought i could take it. honest to god. cross my heart.

the academics warned me against smoking too. and did i listen? boy did i listen. i listened alright. but was hoping i was cheesier than them with more flair for attracting finders with more flair for becoming a keeper.
with more pizazz to convince people to see me like i see them. to burn the rose-tinted 70s hippy bullshit and permanently install disney eyes that widely love wherever they cast their glow at. whispering with cartoon birdlike-properties 'and you and you and you' as they go along. kissing as frequently as they blink.

the academics warned me life wasn't fair and that enjoying your work is crucial to existence. they insisted you have to make your work fun for you. i insisted you have to find a work that is fun for you. that's where we differ, i thought. that and their resistance to seeing how painted tips can genuinely act as an anti-convulsive anti-depressant anti-politicalhell anti-classistbullying anti-beingthelastonetobeacceptedasfiteveranywhere. funny old thoughts they had. you paint your nail, you are immediately anti-intellectual, anti-legal, you might as well be smoking. drugs. and practising. witch. oh whatever. nobody goes down that route if they have support, surely. nobody is curious enough to do something as stupid as smoke or drink or swear, right?

i paint my nails weekly. it is my rescue. you can tell i need it to survive because when you see me with plain, neat & tidy nails i am distracted, too neat and avoidant, my emotional temperature incommunicable, it is like a brick has sat next to the sofa with you and is nodding for you to pour the tea and give it lactofree milk. (you are delusional though if you see an actual brick nod at you. or are possibly tripping on some off ryvitas, mate) Anyway, now you know i've painted my nails, so when you find me you can be sure it is really me.

the academics don't know jack, i suspected. it turns out they did. and are more advanced than i credited them as initially. oh what i'd give to go back and apologise for the errors and embarrassment. oh what i'd give to find words suitable and strong enough to convey to them my love and respect the way they will perceive as 'ok' and won't guilt them into feeling anything other than happiness. basically they were more advanced than me, and now i've reached and possibly exceeded them, with going to university, and being alive and all.

i digress. i am here with my nails and love for academia. i am here with love you can understand. fucking find me already, i'm always here, and i'm always ready. i'm practically your ideal everything and i feed on being smiled at. promise. i don't even need food. ok maybe i do, but you get it. i mean other food. food for thought. food for your soul. good food. food that's good for you. i can feed on you. i do this thing where i suck out all your bad energy and you are left light-headed and happy and you don't even know why. at first i approach the topic with intense hardcore heavy sadness and within seconds you're crying from laughter and you have none left in you at all. it's my trick. for as long as you're near me i make it all go away. and i don't need food. i need you.
whoever you are.
wherever you went.

where?

are you?

where?

or how?

what a shock

peeling top layer off the bottom

with a sharp and instant dedication

unusual for this time in the morning

unusual sleepy extrication.

liturgy interrupted with regret

by self-preserving disrespect

most conspicuous form of treason

most pathetic. without reason.

sucking this thumb harder than an infant. 

concentrating on breaking my teeth

concentrated heat healing my hatred

curing the cramps, crumbling the crust, crying at last

(a)maZochist

if you're ungrateful i hate you 
if you're a traitor i made you 
you seem astonished, i'm on it
i'll shine and i'll polish your astounding addiction to pain 
so it grates on my 
leftover, bagged up heart 
once again. 

same temperature

sitting on the nearly dried street of a london suburb. sitting down on the ground and stretching one leg, bending the other to show off the thinness of thigh and with it the evident need to be thought of as delicate. elegant. to encourage desire to touch her.  her back not touching the wall behind due to miscalculation of distance when first sat down. she is too knotted up to move. she doesn't want to admit error or come across as all over the place. her hands are already doing more than enough talking, rubbing under the eyes the nonexistent itch, wiping the nonexistent excess oil. her skin is perfect. she is mimicking other people's uncomfortable perfectings of their hair and face so she appears animated, so she doesn't intimidate with her physical comfort in discomfort. she realises it is the same summer smell. the same summer temperature. the same shadowy londony experience of musty tree-grass-tarmac heat and gentle breeze. jagermeister and diet coke. it's a tradition. she is so hardcore. she is so rebellious. she is so emotional. she doesn't care but she really does. just right. perfectly perfect. she laughs and looks in the eye. and then away. she is playing with you. she is calling you. she is screaming. jagermeister stupefaction. all a front to explain why she's resting her knee on yours. why she's showing off her skinny arms and careless attitude. she attacks you with semi-insulting semi-inviting laser stare. you close your eyes and squint in the sun. you flick your curl in your finger and then spill a little drink on your jeans. you look adorable. you look exactly as panicked as her. you are so scared and so excited. you are so indifferent. could just pat her head goodbye and not feel a single thread of regret. casual. so bloody casual.

ran out excuses and filler filled with scripted awkwardness. you are not drunk from the jagermeister. you are drunk from the kiss. you are drunk from the realisation you have what you needed in your arms. you have it right there. you might lose it if you are not careful. but for the moment it's right there. no matter how many deep breaths and post party shakes you have, it is not going to disappear. you can just lift your hand and touch it. please lift your hand and touch it.

practising

my elbows fill up with cold liquid. it enters quickly from my middle fingers and runs up sharply to the elbow bone. i channel.
i suppose everyone gets this and it's not just another of my idiosyncrasies uniformally attributed to my foreignness or my whimsical stature. but just occasionally i get sidetracked into thinking i know it is only me. when i walk past a place and i know there is something there 'we' cannot see. when two ladies, looking the part, pity my pathetic wallowing stare of bus-travelling and unnecessary pain and nod to me. it is like hearing something or seeing it. a sense that i really can't define or manipulate. and the other people i detect. i know they know. they know i know. we're basically all sat there not thinking this but pretty much communicating in invisible nods and handshakes.
i am aware of the seriousness of phrasing something so delicate and easily considered as madness or overzealous hope for magical properties. i am not clear of my intentions.
but i am not lying.
seriously. i channel. i pick up. i respect the order of the flow. i can see the actual flow of everything.
and i have no power within it. i am only there to observe and let it rush through me.
i don't want any involvement. i am not meant to change anything. i do not require participation further to this. would you request the clouds move towards one direction over an other just because you could see them? no. proof is irrelevant. but nothing magical is.
rituals are of personal importance anyway. you really don't need to do them if you can concentrate your brain on the one specific request or claim or message. and i rarely do. and it always fucks me up. it's not a fear of repercussions, but rather an unwilling trade-off for nothing. no pain no fucking gain. but i don't need any gain, as you don't. whatever. this is so general i doubt it is meaningful or relevant.
i remember the greet to a soldier. i remember upsetting someone with my heavily distraught emotions in their front living room. i remember the welcome to decisiveness.and angst. the rituals that followed pain. the pain that followed rituals. and now, as tried and tested i can fully disclose and rip open my little sachet of wisdom powder and sprinkle it over your eye. hilariously, the one you don't know you have.
and anyway, if you need something, you may get it. it's a matter of approaching it right. it has to be a requirement and not a luxury. it has to be fair. it has to flow to you the way you flow to it. it is purely a coordinated coincidence.
be aware of the balance.
respect as you wish to be respected.
anyway, whatever, this advice might be irrelevant. but nothing magical is.

no/YES

She disagrees. He watches the dissonance develop behind her eyes. She really does not. He really does. She really cannot. He really must. She doesn't know why. He has never been more certain. She cannot focus on anything. He has it all planned out in a 5-tier diagram. She's forgotten her diaphragm. He is totally in for free fun loving diving. She's a dry creature of the air. He cannot argue. She cannot agree. He is so annoying. She thinks he is all too sweet. He cannot betray her. She cannot believe. He has never met her. She's been with him all along. He cannot think complex. She cannot live straight. He cannot be honest. She cannot be dead.

to my secret

i am persistent and i will hold your hand beyond the acceptable after death.
i am persistent because you showed me i am by guiding my hand into yours and asking me not to let go.
i am persistent because it is the only way i know how to be and the only way i think is right to be.
goodbye

group singing

drop.
drop it.
drop your habit/ drop the jokes, the accusations/
false crap/false expectations/cracking up with shock and embarrassment/ falsified by you not being honest.
i said drop this straight into the cracked bin filled with rubbish and ridiculous explanations nobody asked for.
drop it like it's yesteday's dinner's carcass eaten by the foxes/wipe your arse and swipe your lip and wash your hands in between.
crack- an egg into the pan of ideology. your baby, safely kept in these earthquake hands, riddled with parkinsons and i won't-
drop it. i promise i'm working my hardest but forgetfulness goes with the age and forgetting your apology or  lack of thereof is something i am prone to, in between my cracking sessions of being hilarious for and audience to/ my own sole royal jester. I will hit the wall of repetition quickly and drop the pace to a minimum, whilst the freshly lacquered expectations surface seems to be cracking from the antilogy between my personalities.
I drop my mug of tea and apologise, quickly. To whom?
Something I learnt about us and never revealed to talk about, once noticed how the cracks in our relations were growing deeper and worried it would be our catalyst if i dropped the self-accusatory bomb.
I denied to myself any involvement with risks and testing out hypotheses and the like.
I denied you the joy of clapping your hands to the jovial music, or cracking a whip up an alpine bucolic landscape.
Dropped it with my fair hands. the shakey ones that didn't drop your baby a few lines ago. I dug a little puddle into the damp soil and carefully placed my secret stash of crack and tat and covered with a few hasty kicked-in bits of more mud.
The rain revealed my appalling craftsmanship. Perhaps intentionally, to reveal i am a two-faced hypocrite.
I cracked up. As if that was a secret from you in the first place. We both knew what we signed up for. We cliched our arses off in those first few overnight chats, mildly being electrocuted by bad computer wiring and with sore eyes and cracked yellowing lips from the badly rolled fags, whilst right hand was still insisting on spelling 'the' as 'teh'.
Gleeful and courteous and courting with the subtlety of ten thousand bagpipe students attempting to twinkle your star, for the very first time. With that came the exchange of the facts. In the box. The one with the embarrassing trivia and finger pointing and shut-the-fuck-ups and rosy cheeks and crossed eyes.
So what's the scoop. Tell me what's the truth.
Drop. Drop it.
Double Drop it to ascertain immediate effect.
Drop the stilleto so it acts like a knife. and finish this.

multitude

in too many different ways it is happening.
they all surround me tightly with certain, long-limbed steps and within a few moments my aura is touching every one of them. tightly packed in the middle of their volition, being passively pushed towards the centre of me. being passively pushed towards the centre of you.
i miss.
i miss like i'm innocent. i miss like i'm a victim. i miss like your face is visually more important to me than the light.
i miss helpless and pathetic. restless and dramatic. in chronic pain.
i don't know. i just don't know what to do to erase your ghost shadow from my awareness. i don't know what to do to want to erase your ghost shadow from my awareness. i don't know why i have to be so strict and self-loathing, to remove you. i don't understand why you'd choose this for me. and i still believe what i felt. i can't dispute this for convenience. i can't blindfoldedly deny the existence of a wall i'm repeatedly walking into on the claim of having no visual skills. i can't allow you to fuck up. nobody fucks up. not when they are remembered. not when they are ghosts.

and when i have sort of succeeded in pretending you have never existed, i naughtily prompt recall by paying attention to the black cardboard cut out in the centre of my eyes. i ride the wave of euphoria your existence provides. i ride it down to the industrial landfill landscape it expresses on. i drink from it what looks like an oil leak with bubbles of foam firmly stuck to its surface. it makes the tube in my neck close up. it makes me cough without coughing.

it's all closing in on me. and of course i'm in the middle. a multitude of arrows pointing towards me and a multitude of directions i wish i could move towards. a multitude of reasons not to do it. a multitude of ways i cannot do it.

on the forehead

(she thinks from under the bed)

for fuck's sake please stroke my head. please. my knees have dissolved into powder after a long time of bone rubbing against bone, from the many times i thought it was going to happen and prepared myself and propelled myself a little closer to your hand. like a rusted bio-degraded knee-spring, they have disengaged with me.

for fuck's sake, you've been taunting me for so long. i really can feel my hairline itch. you hand would be annoying but so necessary. you've been talking with your hands for ages and i've falsely expected them to touch me for all this time. can't you see how patient i've been for you?

for fuck's sake, you make contact with me for a split second and before i have proof it happened, before i can have one visual image of it having taken place, you withdraw deep into your hiding place, and pretend never to have left at all, so the others can point at me and say 'liar' and tell me off for not giving up on you.

for fuck's sake, either completely dissolve, like my bones and my self-respect, or make it official, to help me stay ok and not lose it. i am not sure i will make it either way, but this, at least, you owe me.

this plasticity

i'm raw. soft and red. the thin film of the top layer of skin has been carefully peeled off. i glisten. i am now one step closer to being nearer you. one less layer to separate the blood from the air. moist, hot pulsating flesh. all one surface. it's being cooled down by the breeze and my frantic picking of the scabs. i can't seem to know where it's been done and when i need to be more careful. i feel my eyes. their left-right movements, jerkily stabbing my eyelids with pain. or  energy. it is unclear to me what i can feel and it is of no importance at all, so i promise to myself i will ignore this. my lashes flicker, a separate material growing from within my eyelid skin. i feel the slither of liquid make its way across my cheek. it is running so slowly i have to bite my tongue not to move. it touches the top of my lip. i taste my blood and i remember. when did we agree this is not ok? when did we agree i cannot reveal my veins? i read in a magazine once that there are more than two types of people. i forget them all, but i remember one was the person who deals with life quietly. you don't want to state the obvious, you don't need to share your experience, you just need to get on with it and lock your lips with a key you destroy. i remember there is the person who puts on the show, expressing the suppressed, declaring the declared, repeating what we've all heard before and now don't even notice it's repeated once more. and then there is the person that collapses and withdraws and fights and kicks and hides and blames everything on everyone, knowing full well that it is only their fault and without their irregularity, their lives would be perfect and meaningless. i guess i fit in the third category. sorry. i know i can be embarrassing. i know i can take myself so seriously that it shocks and makes internal voices gasp and english manners look away, on the floor with politeness. but i also know i can be exhilarating and blindly optimistic, my hopefulness never haltered or contained in any situation. i am not simple. but i am predictable. consistent within the complexity. responsible within my wild accusatory rage. willing to see and begging to understand. locked inside this face, i'm ripping it off, to get out and touch you. air. (i want to feel you.)

the work

one of those work dreams.
i am last in the office. the lights go off. i don't go home. instead, i sleep on my desk. i wake up at 5 am and the cleaner decides not to come in, so the panic about having to hide/the Anna Frank girl that hides, working upstairs gets forgotten.
my boss & colleagues will be in soon. it's already 6 and 7 am. i am aware i will have to pretend i have been home and come back. i escape through opening and closing the door quickly to confuse anyone standing outside it. i walk down to a lab. i try to get coffee out of the clinical injectiony/chemical/scary vending machine. i get a fix. i jump across the road to an entire new country and it's 50% green grass and 50% concrete staircases.

the cat in the box

gentle caress, inside the silk-lined box. i am miniature and loved so much i accept this as it is.
soft movements so i don't wake up. they touch my fur and i can feel the waves of motion in my heart.
the concept of mortality and the distinction of physical boundaries have stopped being relevant to me since the incident. i am a new thing, new skin, new energy, crumpled up paper with drawn arrows on. i am pointing everywhere, beaming, having remembered i can be complete without effort, as i wish.

living for this second.
i wish for this to continue until i have forgotten how to speak and that is no longer needed anyway.

best of (another list another level)

-indoor protesting
-sunset
-families and ease of being around them
-morning coffee jokes
-walking past ruins on way to shops
-stray dogs, fat and chilled out
-cat cul-de-sac, cat land heaven
-event plannings when event is away and possibilities are still interesting
-ppl getting rid of dissertations and acing vivas
-realising i understand politics, being able to simplify &explain to younger ppl
-telemarketing brochures
-toasties with mortadella &gruyere
-Law & Order on TV & CSI with the lady
-YouTube
-holding hands with mum and dad and the knowing look with sister
-routine that becomes unnoticed and unstressful
-kisses on cheeks and waving hands up in the air

The End. happy The End everyone

poptart (the offender's perspective)

Amazing
four feet under the ground
and still as vibrant as yesterday

Little socks
rolled down on her ankles
and still so weathered
like a leather pipe

She slides off me
and falls in the chair
and smiles slightly
and plays with her hair

Still, like a shepherd
I guide her to me
she nods and she flops
and she spills all her tea

The drunker, the better
I've always believed
I feed them some poison
and then I retrieve

The sighs are all flowers
I'm putting in a box
Their weakness, my power.
I question my touch.

Amazing
her lashes are jewelled with drops
and still as happy as yesterday

Little twinkles
on her shaking wrists
and I find I'm no longer exposing my wit.

a christmas list

A cross between a thanksgiving list and an end of year review.
Bastardised to represent modern life.
Yeah.
This last year's non-ordered bestest things:
1- inside jokes that have been repeated so many times that have become funny again
2- hugs and how they are appropriate again (i had an internal struggle of the suitability of hugs for years and finally the resolution was that i could totally indulge)
3- character caricatures
4- crying with laughter
5- secret boxes, hidden in secret places, holding secrets
6- lactofree milk
7- striking the balance. any balance.
8- circles
9- makeup & tights & socks
10- bed

my dream last night:

lady on my right informs me i must have ‘plastically-enhanced’ breasts because they are so firm and compact.

i learn something new and look straight into the distance, where the grey sea and sky touch.

Clarity: Therapist to therapist.

Lately I've been thinking how feelings for someone tend to include key elements of that person's essence in them. For me it's an assortment of sound clips, the face in a particular expression and a feeling of rushing energy that takes me from baseline to the particular level of whichever emotion i'm trying to recall/ whichever emotion that recollection elicits.

Same for any different person, for any different emotion. I label my feelings clearly and neatly. I tidy around them to make little piles of debris. I decorate with leftovers, in assymetrical threes or spread out dots and with great finesse, lifting my right hand pinky up in the air as far as it goes.

I am not always blessed with the choice of recall however. I assume this is the same for other human beings around- but I do tend to feel very special in equal measures of 'cursed' and 'gifted'. When this intrusion of memories happens, I am often caught offguard, and forced to travel to the empty room inside my head. I am attacked by all the attached information all at once and at the same time consecutively- in complete random order. Faces, falling down as more memories jump up. It's like a virtual reality room, only it's inside my size 34 head. And I took that EEG and we now know for sure that:

a) i'm an excellent reaction task taker, cuz of my inability to let anything go unnoticed (regardless of my choice to act on it or not)
b) i have a perfectly functioning brain that likes computer graphics and represents itself as it should
c) i am completely lost in a battle of interest between my life and internal narrative and complete dislike for anything ever experienced in me, or others' experience of me, fearing 'cliche' as the worst possible label anyone could ever be described as.

So this intrusion of recall is often followed by a burning salad of emotions. The main one is that of irritation for the lack of warning and the disorder of this visit. Then you could say that complete dissolution in the dancing changes in me takes place. I become lost. Completely. More than I did when I blacked out as a child and stared into space for an hour not moving. More than I couldn't remember what I'd had for lunch 3 hours later. My sense of being and feeling all gets caught up in the parade and soon i'm staring at my face, like a player parade on the Wii. Grotesque cliche characteristics. How can this be anything I recognise?

I try to move and then I start suspecting I won't be able to feel it. I am always right in this. Gigantic body below from what I can see. I must be bending my head forward and looking down then. My recall is disrupted by a thousand anxious me's whispering simultaneously: can i feel, can i feel, can i feel? am i alive? am i me? have i died? will i live? can i feel? can you see me? where am i? i'm so calm! i am calm! this is cold. this is weird. can i feel? fuck. fuck can i feel? i can. it's fine. it's fine. i promise. i don't believe you. you should. who are you anyway? i'm you. it's all fine. calm. calm. they can see you. you can't but they can. there's nothing to worry about. u might have died but that's done now so calm down. OK.

Panic attacks and Depersonalisation and Stupidity and Self-Absorption and would i ever have 'suffered' if i had grown up on a farm? physical exhaustion and de-reality and sleep and good grub.
would i have learnt I am so complicated, if i didn't have the language to think it in? would i have understood space and nothingness if I hadn't been taught about it, and what difference does it make.

'we come here to live. we float and we leave. we come hear to leeave. we flote and we live. we come here to eat. we fuck and we shit. we come here out of necessity and tradition and magic and nothing and- what is it exactly you can't understand again? be specific. be specific. please explain in every detail. i need to understand to be able to tidy this up. clutter only leads to more unpredictable visits and i really don't want to faint on this bus'