bukowski hated writers but
sure spent a lot of time talking about them

henry miller was only good
at writing about sex,
and I heard
he didn’t even write those parts

hemingway never wrote drunk,
and I don’t trust a man who can’t do that

kerouac gave up too easily,
and pity is hard to come by these days
so now he sits in that grave alone

I am hung over and twenty-three,
and vomit upon mostly blank pages
to show to faceless people
with souls like dull kitchen knives

we satisfy dried lips
with still water
at the bottom of wells
that we fell into

money talks to ex-girlfriends
about your sexual prowess
and walks into the sunset

find me a reason to try,
and I’ll find you
a page of splintered prose
with wine stains on it

the cheap stuff,
obviously

About three weeks into one of the many jobs
the boss, some short, white woman,
stormed up to me like she meant business.
"You don't act professional!"
she screamed in an emotional rant.
"You don't dress professional.
Your humor isn't professional either."
I stared at her in silence,
occasionally feeling my eyelids blink.
When she finished, I asked a question,
"Can you define the word 'professional?'"
She stormed away with the ferocity
in which she arrived.
I was back on the job boards that night.

What makes an athlete great?

Is it the shoes or the pace
The coach or their grace
The time it takes to finish the race?
Is it the hours in the gym
The drive just to win
Or the people cheering for her or for him.
Is it the desire
That un-bottled fire
That rages and urges us faster and higher
But who bought them the shoes
Thought them not to lose
Picked them up when they were tired and bruised
Yes I crossed the line
I put in the time
But they all came together to make victory mine.

I was not made to be a waitress. To carry plates and pull pints and count coins and be able to breathe at the same time. I should have given up. Four years in and my boss was still telling them that it was my first night, not to mention that time someone half-jokingly asked me, a completely sober seventeen year old with an anxiety disorder in a family owned bistro in white middle-class conservative Hexham, if I was drunk. I was not made for fake confidence and biting back tears, for toilet cubicle walls and breathe in, breathe out, all you had to do was carry the potatoes to table five. I was not made to be a waitress in the same way that I was not made to understand the art of mathematics. The times tables in their white linen shirts stained with my clumsiness laughing at me as I dropped plates and couldn’t subtract fifty four pence from five pounds seventy two at the till. I wasn’t made for sequence. For questions with definite answers, I was not made for having to be right. I was made for having to be wrong. Over and over, for fucking up a lime and soda, or was it lemon? Four years into a job. I was made for honesty. For answering you truthfully when you ask me what I am thinking. I was made for chocolate on the hob and strawberries tickled with sugar in hand, for the familiarity of the songs of a home friend’s band, I was made for softness. For your lips on my lips and my hands on your hips and the imprint of your freckles on my cheek. I was made for learning that this is not weak. For learning that I was made for me.  For dancing badly and laughing loudly and eating messily. We, on the other hand, were not made for each other the way people appear to be on film, the megabus trips without air-conditioning and the seven inches and 165 miles that fall between us the ever persistent proof. I was not made for you, designed so that our lives would perfectly intertwine but what does it matter when in this moment I think I was made for this. For half-lit, half-fit bliss. For reading poetry to you at three am until you fall asleep, when all that is left is the hum of your breath as my voice echoes milk and honey, making me feel like I could be made for anything, even though we’re apart.

Sidenote: June ’17- this time there was only one 'first night' at my new job.

When long commutes and monotonous drives
Define the journeys in our lives,

And being boxed into office hives
Has long since left our souls deprived.

Ask yourself.
Is this living?

When years sat down, in terse duress
Form on our heads deep valleys and crests,

And weekends are for the unfinished mess
Of work still piled high on uncleared desk.

Ask yourself.
Am I alive?

dragging wood
now at the end of a long day
a song for weariness

dragging wood
now at the end of a long day
an easy task