what is wrong with me?! i thought i was way past this
teenage point infancy of feelings -
i thought i would never return to the boy that would
look at girls with longing in high school -
who'd ask them to be drawn - whether Janina in art class
to asking this new girl Emma a year my junior
when she started attending our school's sixth form
college and i asked her: can you give me a photograph
of yourself... i want to sketch you...
i'm sitting down writing this listening to music that
i listened to as a teenager... for ****'s sake... Backstreet Boys?!
you have to kidding me: i'm kidding myself...
i feel like a mollusk: all mushy-peas and butterflies
in my stomach...
she was new to the job... but i worked with her friend
who she apparently has know for donkey's years...
i always wanted to come across this sort of an English
beauty... dark ginger hair... not even remotely ginger...
no freckles... perhaps slightly pale skin... but in her own words
she tans decently... i was curious: that's not ginger:
proper ginger.... it's more auburn brown: perhaps a darker
shade of ginger...
and her smile: lustful yet at the time playful...
Gemma... oh Gemma Gemma...
         why am i getting all these butterflies... why have i returned
to the boy... i know this isn't love:
it's such a sickly sweet infatuation...
i took care of her on her first shift... we worked the turnstiles
checking for Covid passes... we had fun...
she felt comfortable... i gave her my hand to feel
how cold it was...
    i hate jewelry on the hands but i didn't even mind
that she had four rings...
then her back story... how old are you, she asked: 35...
see... at 35 and not married, childless...
what's on offer? i can see girls in their early 20s... in their
late teens... oddly enough i can never find these
girls.. women... interesting...
obviously i didn't ask her for her age...
she was going to disclose it at some point: covertly...
she had her son at the age of 27... he's 12 now...
ergo? she's 39...
                   what are my prospects? if i didn't go mad
at the age of 21, i might be your atypical male in his 30s...
with a stable career, a decent income....
probably a mortgage, a car... but silly ol' me had
to ******* and look for god and honing a life under
the radar of prescribing myself to the pursuit of art
and a quasi-poverty...
it all looks great when such elevated feelings come into
play: but i can't afford the sort of things reality
dictates when it comes to women...
some boyish infatuation bound to a 30+ year old man
is only going to hurt me...
poker face on...
     i can't provide what is expected of me: if anything
is to be expected of me to begin with...
i better keep my distance...
while there she is... telling me of her private life...
aged 27 she was impregnated...
the guy broke it off with her 3 months before they
were supposed to get married...
he apparently said that he would be ****** if he stayed
and doubly ****** if he left...
an alcoholic, he was charged with battering her
and her son: his son... then 3 years old...
he was given an 8 month suspended sentence and
some hours of community service...
his second, third, fourth? partner he also impregnated...
but she was already mothering three children
from three different fathers... ahem... "fathers"...
he apparently drew up 8 thousand pounds of debt
on her credit cards...
                      i'm in love, i'm infatuated...
but in the back of my mind... i'm getting "triggered"...
we talked about her kid... i tell her that i was also an only
child... the kid calls him ****, doesn't call him father...
hasn't really seen him: to the best of his ability to remember...
while we were coming back from our Fulham shift
she would rest on my shoulder,
look at me like a schoolgirl... i'd pretend to not notice...
she would sit slightly forward...
rest her elbow on my leg... she felt sick, she had a headache...
good on my to have had some paracetamol...
i told her to draw the glass down so gusts of fresh air
would her face...
god... the only thing that was missing was
seeing her face in the moonlight, in a forest...
RYAN ADAMS - STAY WITH ME...
we passed the national history museum and she thought
about going inside... the ice-rink outside...
the ice-rink outside of Somerset House...
once you get older ****** tensions become so much more
deliberate...
subtle... yet nothing closely associated with
the vulgarity of being a teenager: we're talking about
hurt creatures mingling with hurt creatures...
yeah, women made mistakes... judge them?
not when they are coming across so insatiable...
i never thought i'd return to this arena of feeling...
she picked up some Chinese take-away while dropping me
off at the nearest Tesco so i could pick up a liter of whiskey
and ******* home...
Fulham FC beat Bristol City 6 - 2...
                 oh Gemma Gemma, Gemma...
i've been living in England since i've been 8 years old
yet i've only ever dated a French girl, an Australian girl,
a Russian, ****** a Thai surprise, a Turkish *******...
an Ukrainian *******, a Romanian *******...
i too consider myself an alcoholic...
but... ramming my fist into a woman, choking her...
beating my own offspring... that **** is off-limits...
i've been missing to tell English girls what i've been dying to
tell them for the past 20 years...
would i take your son on a date with you in tow
to the National History Museum?
sure... i think i would...
         but that's what's on offer...
                            too many unrealistic expectations on
the behalf of 20 year old girls...
Gemma has a car... i rather cycle... could me and your
son go cycling, toward Epping?
sure... that's... what's on offer...
fair enough for the infatuation... but when reality
comes around to bite my *** i know this will only have been
a very beautiful dream... chances are...
for every kid there will be a different daddy...
hell... she might be a lesbian... but she has children...
she's dating women but... what?
she went to the ******* *****-donor clinic
for her sample of progressiveness?!

beautiful, i don't know how i found my extroversion
and my confidence, maybe it was always there:
sleeping... while i was looking for something else...
i might drink, excessively at times...
but even i'm thinking along the lines:
i ****** up... but i didn't **** up to that point...
not that i'm any better... just saying:
at least i'm not scarring younglings...
to hell with bringing children into the world if
you **** them up outright...
i'd rather have no children than **** up children...
but i still can't help falling in love...
even if she's 3 years my senior...

you know what she even mentioned... her anxiety...
why are these women so open with me?
i'm the guy who ***** off into a forest or a graveyard
at night... am i to be trusted?!
so she tells me that she started gnashing her teeth...
grinding them unconsciously...
because of all the stress her supposed super EX...
the one that impregnated her, that run 8K pounds' worth
of debt on her card... she now has to think about
getting filling on four of her teeth:
since she was grinding her teeth...
i did that once... just after my great-grandmother's funeral...
i sat alone in the kitchen and gnashed my teeth...
i also took a red rose i was supposed to throw
into the grave for some ******* reason:
which i didn't... i didn't... i sat alone in the kitchen
at night and played around with the candlelight...
i managed to turn a red rose into a purple rose
by the use of candlelight...

to be in love once more: but... oh **** me...
the reservations keep flooding in...
this might only become a one night stand of me feeling this...
we picked up her Chinese takeaway...
while she dropped me off i was tempted to
kiss her hand goodbye... i refrained...
i was sort of waiting for the words:
you want to come over with me?
i just left her to her Chinese takeaway to herself,
alone... i'm drinking whiskey on my own...
but... am i alone?

               what a ****-show modernity has become...
honest to god and the devil...
the arch-angels and the demons....
you are here: you are here...

tonight i might have to mount the tired
steed of snow & the frozen lake...
to make it over some minimal distance...
oh Gemma, Gemma, Gemma...
you eating the Chinese take-away yourself...
not that i'm at all the best of company...
but how pretty you look.