what bird are you,
dropping to your knees
like a servant
whilst I worry about ebola?

what kind of bird are you, dear?

how I wish I had a book about birds,
how I wish I'd paid attention
when you whistled your name

this dust-rolled
brown moth
is
patterned
with a band of white
to stand for winter,
when it was just a flimsy bundle
of gristle and sticks

and all the boys in the summertime are sticky and
unclean
like the mouths of dogs -
pink where the sun can't lick

the backs of their necks are baked red brick

girls wear bronzer
piled on thick.

'Every night, It's like ******* clockwork.'
'What is?'
'You! Turn the lights off. Turn over. Lights on. Get back up. ****. Come back to bed. Turn over. Kick. Get back up. Go to fridge. What the **** are you eating, anyway?'
'Sticks of Pineapple.'
'Sticks of Pineapple? Jesus.'
'What?'
'It's just…weird, that's all.'
'What's weird about it?'
'It's not the done thing, is it?'
'No - biscuits are not the done thing. Crackers and biscuits. Crumb detritus, hazard for all.'
'What else have you got there?'
'Jelly babies.'
'******* woman.'
"They're soft! They're not a bed hazard!'
'You sure you're not pregnant?'
'What was Robert like in bed then? Straight to sleep, was he, old Robert?'
'He was, as a matter of fact.'
'Yeah well. Bully for Robert.'
'Alright, let's not bring Robert into this -'
'Eat this bit of spat out pineapple. Go on. Eat it to show your devotion.'
'I'll punch you in the face, is what I'll do.'
'Eat it. Enjoy it. Swallow it.'
'Has the sleeping pill kicked in yet?'
'I'm getting there.'
(He eats the spat out pineapple.)
'Now got to ******* sleep, ya degenerate.'

I’d done a lot of drugs that summer, drank a lot, and lost my virginity a hundred times over.
David. He was the man who ****** me for the first time. He was in his thirties, a Buddhist, and a patient teacher.
In the dark, he was so ****, iron filings and gum.
But perhaps it wasn’t him that enticed me into ***. I think it might have been a combination of everything. The way his girl-faced Buddha shone by the light of a candle. The view from his window – city flowers and washing lines, Chopin on the stereo, the cleanness of his sheets, the girl in the next room talking loudly about Jean Paul Sartre.
I want you, I said.
Fifteen, I was. He didn’t know that, of course.

There was a terrible pressure when he ****** me, so he told me to
Relax
Relax
Relax
Imagine you’re emptying out
Imagine you’re emptying out and accepting something holy
communion if you like
you're catholic aren't you?
You look lovely
You feel lovely
You look lovely

There was a part of my mind that thought of girls being torn through, blood and pain, embarrassment in the morning. I couldn’t stay hard.
There was a part of me that gave in, with my knees up by my shoulders.
There was a part of me that wanted to flip him onto his back and **** him, part of me that was desperate to be a man, part of me that hated this submission.
In the morning there was no embarrassment, just cereal and ten different types of smile. Milk in bed. A lecture on loving kindness.

Is it weird to hallucinate wind chimes? twinkle twinkle, they go - twinkle, twinkle

I didn't eat breakfast but went straight to church, out of the sun and into the stone. I lit one candle and it shone on the rack.
I am sitting behind myself, a teenager coughing emeralds into a wet tissue, raging with flu.
Over there, I am ten years old.
All of these me's, bursting in the silence, finding excuses not to pray.

ten am
walked to the cafe to watch ten thousand beating hearts carried like luggage -
one girl has bought an orange and is eating it right in front of me-
It slipped down her neck one piece at a time.
I suppose it's quite intimate to watch someone eat an orange like that.

Dutch guy (I think Dutch, but god knows) on the phone
with a very, very, very nice **** and a tattoo going up his arm that
sort of looks like a vine.

walked some more and dunked my head in the fountain to cool off,
already dry and sitting in the park
music everywhere
I can't get that piano piece out of my head, 'The Entertainer'
and also that bit from ******
'all the stars and the cars and the bars and the barmen'
or something like that.

hello love, would you mind a good seeing to?
not tonight sweetcheeks, I utterly loathe you
I am aching everywhere.
Do I look mad or heartbroken or both?

if he doesn't call by one then
(what? what are you actually going to do about it you stupid ****?)

The key to good mental health is to avoid thinking at any cost and don't go anywhere when you have nowhere to go.

I'm sorry
for my glamorous sizzling brain circuitry

I'm sorry
that I never warned you about the summer

sorry
I'm so sorry
for my own bones

sorry that I'm not quite the ticket

sorry if I'm not a good neighbour

sorry
I'm going up the wall

I'm sorry
if I wish this would go away
and give me the future that I'd always been promised

I'm sorry
I'm so sorry
but I can't cut out my own mind

and even if I could
I wouldn't

text me back to tell me that you're in

that you're in the living room,
downing gin,
sat next to an overflowing bin
whilst your flatmate plays the smallest violin

because if you're out I know you're meeting him -
(swollen from his evenings at the gym)

and I'll turn up, to tear him limb from limb,

so please text back, to tell me that you're in