A great, big fish, slapped
out on the ice. Rainbow
skin, and the smell of seawater.
I sit
and chat with the fishmonger.
Four kilos of salmon or herring,
for chowder, or something.

I keep finding drugs in my bra.
I'm not even sure
how they get there. I told a boy
how I felt. He got scared, and he ran,
but then he came back
like they usually do.

My boss makes me tired.
This town makes me tired.
I'm getting ***** looks from a pregnant girl
because I slept with the father
of her unborn child.
And I can't even blame her.

This town is a cesspit.
A melting black hole of *******,
ecstasy, Guinness and cheap cocktails.
It smells of cigarette smoke
and no one uses condoms.

I'll be going back to school soon.
A different world where books are cool,
where drugs aren't glamorous
and tobacco is stupid.

Xanax is my new best friend,
it numbs me to dish-washing,
fish shopping, coke sniffing,
*******
and hopeless despair.
Get me out of here.

Prozac could be
a better choice than ******* —
but at least coke
has character. I went
for a walk and it made me feel better,
except for the hayfever.
That just made me blind.

I'm so
******* paranoid. I can hear
them laughing
behind me. What's worse
is that I know they're not,
because they don't give
two ***** about me.

It's just a smaller dose of serotonin,
I can get that in ecstasy.
Just a smaller cut of dopamine.
I can get that from boys for a kiss
and some flirting.

I wish you were here to smell my hair again,
I miss you like sleep and like calcium.

I haven't smoked once today
for the first time in weeks.
Dear God - please,
give me a cigarette. Please
give me a line or a drag
of a joint, or a glass of wine
or a hug or some sunlight.

Work in seven
hours and I've been crying all evening.
But why? For no
**** reason. Paid tomorrow,
and I might
spend it all on drugs or a tattoo,
or tobacco or I wonder
could I pay someone
to love me.

I'm trapped
in an I'm-not-OK-hole—
in a *******.
In a thousand-of-miles-from-the-city hole.

I'm a session moth.
Wake up like a ******, rollie
on the bedside locker.
Not knowing where I am
or how I got there. Jump
into the nearest car and just say
"drive"
and eat nothing but still look fat.

This morning I was suicidal,
I nearly walked out in front of a truck.
But it was alright,
I remembered
I hadn't taken my pill in a day or two,
stopped crying and
went back to work.

Half asleep, driving for hours
with Budweiser bottles,
warm from the heating.
The windows were all down,
we were smoking rollies,
all sharing one lighter because the driver
dropped his in a can of fanta.

Next thing,
the roar of an army of twincams.
VTECs, something insanely beautiful,
and incredibly ridiculous,
a convention of petrol heads—
Gardaí everywhere, searching for tax
and insurance. My God, I was in it.
Hundreds of thousands of them,
all excited like children,
the screaming of a million voices,
no exhaustion in the exhaust fumes.

The hills rose around us, the traffic
packed backwards,
expensive cars all sardined in a roundabout.
How loud can you get it?
Can she sing like a canary?
Can she find herself at the Letterkenny rally?

You seem so lovely and gentle,
it's nice
that you don't find it strange
when I leave you ten voicemails
drunkenly rapping
about how fantastic life is.

Why,
do I find it so easy, with you,
to embarrass myself?
But I'm never ashamed,
I just laugh when you laugh.

That weird feeling,
that comfortable feeling,
that I haven't been feeling
in a long time now. It's cute.
It's warm and all yellow.

Love is blind. But this isn't love.
This is sugary, syrupy,
I could almost call you sweetheart.
Buy me an ice-cream, maybe,
I might let you see me eat.

You're a bit of a *** head. But that's okay.
I don't mind it really.
You're a little bit lazy -
you remind me of sweet hazy grass
on grass in the summer sun.

I've got lines, I know them off,
I sniff them off my student card.
I twist them in my mind,
add a smile, I'm an artist.
I'm a smart girl. An actress.
I cry in rooms with the doors shut,
reapply my mascara and rejoin the party.

No would notice I'd been or gone.
No one would notice if I wasn't around.
I liven up a room,
and they like me to be there,
yet I'm never missed.

Tell me did you mean any of it?
The dreams of getting old,
did they mean anything at all?
Did you look into my eyes
and tell me you could see a future with me,
knowing all the time,
you were going to have a baby?

Imagine, a kiddie,
all little and childlike and calling you daddy.

Why did you cut me off?
Couldn't you just
explain it to me?

Who was I for a while there? Happy?
That couldn't have been me.

I'm just a fridge door,
magnetic, a face full of memories.
I'll reflect your life back to you,
I'm all smooth and shiny.

I'm great at a party. I'm blonde,
and I'm fun,
I'm numb
and all empty.
Just pass me a drink, love,
just let me forget me.
I'm in the ******* crew—
let me never see twenty.

Friday, you said you'd meet me
Saturday,
so I waited in, scrubbed
my bedroom clean. But
the call never came. I fell asleep
on top of the neatly made bed.

The call never came again,
what happened? That you
so suddenly forgot me,
could kiss me on a Friday
and move on in a heartbeat?

A girl told Rachael
I should wait away from you,
you were trouble
and I shouldn't stay with you —
I don't even know why,
you just said it was nothing
and ignored all my questions.

"War" was the word used,
I'd be dragged into fighting.
But I don't care. I've done it enough,
I've taken boys from nice girls
and fought with them all.
Just tell me what happened,
if you're coming back and
I'll throw on my boxing gloves.