"sometimes i look at you, and its brilliant, and i can see all the things we're going to do, and how we'll be immortal, stamped on to people's memories, and this huge wave of contentment rushes over me, and its just...just brilliant.

of course, other times you act like such a fuckwit it's hard to see how you managed out your front door alive."

history

it started with an itch under my skin and a deadline in my eyesight
it ended with a bloody fist and a bruised ego.
#
it's always been violent, with me. you need to remember that. it's always been violent because somehow i got violence confused with expression and decided to always wear a scowl.
#
you used to be so hungry for fame.
i've always been wolfing down the infamy.
#
it was pretense that brought us together, it was me who tore us apart. because i don't like being lied to, i don't like being cheated. don't try to slide the queen of hearts out of your shirtsleeve, she's been in my wallet for years.
#
i don't have cheekbones, talent or motivation. what i do have is miles and miles, gallons and gallons of bile and venom and vehemence because that's easier, isn't it?
you should know. you've got the same.
#
it was your fightclub against my lessthanzero
funny, that.
#
sometimes i catch a glimpse of you, in a sweaty club, in a darkened bar, in a brickcrumbling alley. sometimes i think you catch a glimpse of me, despite my best efforts.
#
sometimes you think people want more than you can give. you're wrong. they don't want what you have to give. they just want to know everything about you, everything that makes you you. they want to understand, because if they understand, then they can own. and if they can own, then they can be powerful.
don't you get it?
#
so you tried to destroy the dream you'd built. while i tried to reenact my nightmares.
we failed, miserably
victory never suited our complexions
#
my personality has always been a lie – i can spin them faster than i can say them. it may be that i don't want people too close, so i let them befriend someone else. maybe if i didnt, maybe you and i would have gotten on better.
except for the fact you do exactly the same thing.
#
twins.
we were always reluctant recalcitrant twins.
steeped in alcohol, spitting our teeth on the ground.
#
i started as an itch under your skin and a deadline in your eyesight
you ended with a bloody fist and a bruised ego.

the bitter single being

i know all these stupid couples. all these stupid couples with rings on their fingers and promises of forever on their lips, and these stupid people who can see five years ahead, when i can't even see if getting up tomorrow morning will be worth it. and all these stupid couples think i'm self absorbed, i'm selfish, i'm stupid. just once, i'd like them to notice.

x

i'm very tired. very very tired and if you asked, i'd tell you i was beyond tired, whatever that means. i can't see a point to all this anymore. after all, when no one thinks what i'm doing is worthwhile - why should i? and i know i used to talk about supernovas and i used to get back up so quickly, but there just doesn't seem to be a reason anymore. its offputting.

x

a lack of affection has always haunted my household.

goodbye service

thinking you aren't worth fighting for is wildly different to knowing that you aren't. one has you gasping, one has you sobbing. and you remember potential, red hair and dangerous words. you remember how the world was in your hands until you threw it away for a chance to be good, to be loved, to be valued.

and you know that you never believed in regret or hindsight, but maybe maybe maybe another shot at all this, and you wouldn't mess it up so badly. maybe you'd be different.

probably not.

x

the words stopped. they stopped and they stuttered. a giant blockage that made me think maybe this wasn't what i wanted. a fat girl told me i was ugly. a french boy used his fingers in ways that should have been illegal, and whatever it was that i took in amsterdam, it damaged me. i wanted to be a child again, even though i knew i couldn't. i wore dresses, party dresses, coloured dresses and hoped that my small stature would have me mistaken for a three year old, and someone would hold me until the universe stopped hurting. when we were younger, everything was easier because we were deaf, blind and dumb. the innocence rolled off us in waves, in hurricanes, in kisses. now when i look outside myself, the world seems stupid, seems doomed and crazed and like nothing i do will make a difference. i never wanted this, i never asked but it is what it is and once i would have said i'd fight it tooth and nail. now though, i'm much more inclined to button my lip and say nothing.

because now i am a joke. i am a jester. a fool. people look through me with eyes of scorn. i have failed, spectacularly so, and they want to make sure i never forget it. recovery is not an option. i threw myself off my pedestal, caught my limbs in thorns and still refused to lower my head. there is no room for people like me. for heretics, for intellectuals, for academics, for dreamers. people laugh at me when i open my mouth and fanciful ideas come out. i am surrounded by the self conscious insecure awkward, and i am the easiest target available. because now i am i a joke, i am a jester. but they forget that i was always a fool.

x

it's becoming apparent that i don't like anyone i know, and that they don't like me. so i'm getting vicious, i'm getting nasty and i'm tearing myself a new hole in the world. i spend hours sobbing on my own, and no one ever comes to stroke my hair. so i'm getting vicious, i'm getting nasty. i'm getting single minded. i'm getting back up and i'm getting stronger. every wall i put up has been knocked down - by me. because no matter how bruised i get, or how sad, or how hopeless, i still want to win. more than anything.

on your own merit, this time

the moment love has passed
i could have done more. i could have done more, i should have, and then we could have been brilliant. instead i dallied, i dawdled, i daydreamed and now. now you're cold and I'm shivering. i didn't think this would happen, because i didn't ever think. i thought there would be battle, that there would be war. i never thought that maybe it'd all be my fault. that the bruises we sported would have been my handwork. christ, how was i so childish about something so important?
and now you're dressed in white and i'm curled in the churchyard, my gut cramping and my heart spinning.
look what i've done. everything we said we stood for, i ruined. i lied and i betrayed you. i turned traitor the way i draw breath - involuntarily. you thought it was a joke, that i was cloaking myself in the stereotype of troubled little girl. i thought it was a joke, that i was robbing the darkness. now though, now surely you must see that i was a lie from the beginning.
the discourses i vomited on religion, on faith, on fear, did they have any merit? please tell me that i've left something in your mind, a constant question that will make you work harder, make your trust tougher to earn. tell me that i've improved you, by hurting you. in this modern morbid world, you were always too tender.

when it kicks like a sleep twitch
five days. five days since. well. it's easier to say five days since i've slept. i could tell you about the physical effects - how the past two days have seen me throw up any food i try to put in my body, how people think i've been punched. but you aren't interested in that. you want to know what happened. i could lie, tell you something pretty, tell you that global warming has got me scared. tell you i'm on contract, waiting for destiny. but i've lied so often that it's gotten boring. the truth feels like cold water now - y'know, when you drink it too fast and your chest seizes up. like a vice. it's refreshing, in it's own way, i guess. different to the numbness on the back of my tongue lying brings. sorry, i said i wasn't going to talk about the physical. i can't help it. my world's based on the physicality of things, so that i don't have to deal with the emotional bullshit talking things. deconstructing stuff. i'm not very good at talking about that. i'm not very good at talking, now that i've been awake for five days. this morning i found myself incapable of focusing on the newspaper; the headlines rearranging themselves to form satanic messages of grief. four days ago i felt my mind turn to lead. an hour ago i felt weightlessness consume me. i can't give you any excuses. none that you'll believe. but it's been five days, and i'm awake. it hurts, it must hurt the way being a god does, where i can feel everything and it hurts. i can't wait until this is over, i'll sleep in gutters, on trains, in libraries, on supermarket floors. when this is over, i'll sleep like the dead.


every little piece
the first time someone forgot my name. the second time someone acted like we'd slept together. the third time someone attacked me for being a burglar. with a teapot. they missed, but when the teapot hit the wall, the spout shattered and left my cheek scarred. the fourth fifth sixth seventh eighth ninth billionth time all blend together, and now i'm used to it. i must have one of those faces, one of those personalities that just aren't very memorable. it's weird, because my clothes are bright and i make a point of making eye contact - the old "make them watch one hand while you're robbing them with the other". people ought to remember me. but they don't. and because they don't remember me, they don't really care about me. it's not their fault, don't get righteous on my part. there's clearly nothing for them to remember. and that's where the humour and the hurt come in. it;s hysterical, because people make such bizarre assumptions - that i'm a witch, a vagrant. but the hurt, when someone thinks i'm a long lost sister, a dead mother - it's a wall of grief because i'm not that person, and we all want me to be. because if i was, then i'd be remembered and loved. as it is i'm just a continual disappointment. so i've learnt to hide in the shadows, i've learnt to look at my feet more than people's faces. and then you come along with your wretched shining armour knight complex, and look at me, and its a guttural sound trying to claw it's way through my body, it's more than grief, it's desolation. you won't remember me in the morning. and in a week, i won't remember you. you'll blend in, number three hundred and seventy eight billion.

it kicks like a sleep twitch

the thieves and murderers i used to hang out with are faded now. occasionally i use them as shock value, the way they used me. sometimes i feel a clenched fist on my hip, bricks at my back and brimstone breath on my neck when i'm sitting on the train. often, my breath quickens and i have to tear at my nails to stop myself falling over.

i'm getting far too good at lying.

i can't keep this up.

film for the future

He stumbled in, all pointed inelegance, studied exhaustion. and a fucking terrible haircut. I hadn't slept for over 80 hours, everything was hysterical and hypertense. I was hysterical and hypertense. That's my default setting. He auto-patted the cat, named after a friend of his that I hate, let the sleeping dog named for my pretentiousness lie sprawled. The only pet in the house he paid any attention to was me. Me, the picture of modern youth. The television played static, the dog muttered in tune. As a dry hand pulled at back of my neck, I demanded to know why his hair was such a fucking disaster.

I'm such a comedian. In an hour he'll be clean shaved, in a week the hair will be better. And it hurts, violently, the way things don't matter, won't matter. The way things are changing without us noticing. The way I'm changing.

A year ago, I wrote him dialogues so that we could avoid arguments and be a cliched disaster couple. A year ago, I left and the words went with me. I've been telling everyone, in my loudest voice, about how I don't write reams and reams of words anymore. If you want a cut to the core in a literary form, you'd be better talking to Stephanie Meyer. I told everyone, over and over, that it was because I got scared, I got fear, I got it all wrong and I got it all bad.

Here, hurting all over with sleeplessness, cat scratches and the sight of someone I missed, I'm left wondering if maybe all that happened was that I found a new way to turn the words, so that they weren't a weapon, they were an ally. But looking at his fucking stupid haircut, and hearing white noise instead of his garbled attempts at being one of the intelligensia, I'm hurting for something old, wishing for something new.