Dancing with the idea I might like
That tousled fro
Those 121s that drip with laughter
And those pre-sleep minutes doused in the hot flames of a fantasy.
Distressed by the thought
Of upsetting you
Of playing second fiddle
To another
Of watching you sidle up, delicate hand outstretched
Helpful words cascading from your tongue.
Playing with the idea of biting your earlobes
Jaded, sepia hours spent in an apartment
You cooking, innocent
Turning dangerous, unable to bear the air ablaze with passion.
Crooked arms and tangled feet and bodies slapped together like ham onto bread
Wet from the heat, hot wafts of wheat.
Smile sticky with sweetness
And good intentions
That curtsy before me in every catch up.
Tag: millennial
Latte lust
How bad is coffee
how bad is it for my bones and brain
does it sharpen or dull
strengthen or weaken
will you make me shake or seize up
blunt my senses
or help them breathe better?
The fact that I take sugar surely shortens my life span
a pollution of the soul
a voluntary poisoning
all in the seeking of sweetness.
My teeth cry out
clamouring for a well deserved respite
from this sickly invasion.
Yet I can’t seem to cease sprinkling this toxic taste bud tingling torture
over all my drinks
and I sometimes wonder
whether I should have never started drinking coffee
as it does me no good.
Relatability #1: entering the week with all these grandiose ideas about how productive you’ll be but then never following through on any of them.
I follow all the self improvement sub-reddits. The ones that make you gasp and ‘gosh’ at all these humans around the world who wake up at 5am, go for a run, do some yoga and contribute more to the world before their Cheerios than you do in a full day.
Yes, I’ll say, this is my week. This is when I’ll finally write a poem every day, meditate for an hour, and work out every other day. I’ll get up and go for a jog just as dawn creeps in, and I’ll then whip up something green and nutritious in my Nutribullet before journalling like I’m fucking Ernest Hemingway.
I’ll sit at my desk and tap away at emails, words cascading down my fingers like children on water slides. I’ll break for lunch and not feel guilty about fucking off for half an hour to eat some beans on toast and maybe watch The Office. I’ll log back on and do my work and boss that meeting I’ve been so terrified about for weeks (the one where I’ll have to speak and sell our services with a honey-laced voice that only grows so sickly sweet when speaking to clients).
I’ll log off at 5.30pm and not feel guilty about not staying online for another three hours like that other girl, her icon a stubborn Shrek shade of green. It’s like a fucking challenge to find out who can stay online the longest, and who’s the most dedicated to this really-not-so-important-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things job. But instead I’ll shut the lid and forget about all the nothingness, and I’ll banish tomorrow’s meeting and next week’s presentation and the following month’s review from my brain as though they were cat hairs that met their end at the hands of a lint roller.
I’ll turn to YouTube for a workout that gives me electric thighs, Barbie doll arms and calves as juicy as hamburgers within a matter of weeks. I’ll see the poundage drop like Deliveroo groceries on a pandemic doorstep and I’ll finally feel chiseled and strong. Then I’ll take myself off for a shower and get in while the water’s running cold (I’ll do this three times a week to boost my immune system and tell everyone I know about it so they’re aware of how incredibly awesome I am).
I’ll apply skincare products as part of a rigorous routine to make my face porelessly porcelain. I’ll coat my hair with a masque that makes it smell like the inside of Victoria’s Secret or the Playboy Mansion. I’ll then read five thousand pages of a book, shunning Netflix for Sylvia Plath because I can learn much more through books than I can from Michael Scott obviously.
In fact, I grow so ambivalent towards Netflix that I cancel my subscription altogether. I sign out and tell my stepdad ‘no, I won’t be leeching off your account anymore’ and I bid adieu to Pam and Jim and all the others.
I’ll read a thousand books in a year. I’ll start studying beginners’ Arabic and take the GCSE in Russian I’ve been considering for a while. I’ll speak to pen-pals in unusual corners of the world and once I’m proficient in Russian and Arabic, I’ll apply to MI5 and become the next James Bond.
Oh the things I could do, if I could just get off my sodding arse.
Happy yawns
I never write when I’m happy
Except for now, while I’m bursting
at the seams with gratitude.
It’s overpowering
like water running through the pipes of the soul.
I sat on the carpet beneath the Christmas tree
and soaked up the flickering of the lights,
brushed the lukewarm, balmy carpet
with my fingers
and felt comfort envelop me,
cradle me,
shower me with its kisses.
Past experiences will always remain,
the future will always feel foggy,
I’ll always grapple with the present.
I may look upon it all fondly,
but that doesn’t mean I need it.
Notes 29/8
I don’t think it’s crazy to yearn for that dalliance
Me who always shunned settling
Forgot about the ecstasy lining the stomach
Of that faded firework
Burning brightly, licked like a lolly
The sleepover invitation
Fibbing to the folks
Getting dressed up at the step mum’s pad
Lies that taste sweet as Pink Ladies
Guilt tripping me over, loosening my laces
It’s just but it’s loathsome
Difficult to pin down
The in between time, the shuttling back from dating alley of lover’s beach
The eternal guessing game
That clips my wings and stunts my feelings
That hamster wheel forever rolling, stuck in its mindless mesh
And what if I want to get off?
What if I’ve had enough?
Thudding to a stop, wheel burns a mark in the pavement
And what if I want to get back on?
Stepping back into this scrambled wheel yet again.
Coca Cola fantasy
Beer-soaked bellies tend to bash my chair
as they rumble past, making me jolt,
drink spilling, temper flaring.
Gazing at my caramel concoction,
a tooth-fairy blend of Coke
and sickly-sweet, candy-cane Malibu.
“I’d rather just have the Coke,” I say
And the whole room chuckles
because a spiritless double or gin-less tonic
is just crazy, apparently.
Minor occasions
I’m sorry I didn’t ask you how you were
As we tumbled down the stairs
Like soldiers in formation
I’m sorry for not tapping on your shoulder
And saying howdy how’s it going
Instead of staying silent
Humming like a torch’s bulb.
You see my hair was sticking to my cheeks
Stuck something silly like a tangled mess of hay
And my face was clogged with sweat
From the day’s struggle and strife
I’d picked at my fringe and prodded it sideways
Toppling over my eggy forehead
In a bid to reduce what I saw in the mirror
A ghost, a thief, a terrifying mirage
That burned holes in my outer shell
And poured its poison through them.
You see I wasn’t in a fit state to speak to you
I didn’t want your first impression to be
A slippery, oily mess of a girl
So I left you to glide down the stairs amid a sea of strangers
While I stayed back, coolly
Deranged and broken.
When you realise he’s maybe just not that into you and everything slows to a snail’s pace and you start tearing your hair out and balling your eyes out.
The journey has come to a screeching halt
From pedal to floor
I heard its thunderous roar
As it stopped dead in its tracks.
Panic ensued
Anxiety came
Asking myself “what is this game?”
Because we’ve started shuffling cards, dealing hands
And I’m no longer chugging along sands
Of limp, moth-eaten metal
No carriage to rest or settle
Just an abrupt shove into a passerby
Flung from my seat with emotions awry
Buckle up babe it’s going to be a bumpy ride
From here on out
With this particular duvet-lipped guy.
The week after
The week after, I’ve been left with flaming wreckage. A plane engulfed by biting fire and yapping sparks has been laid at the foot of my bed like a weak old party balloon.
“Is this what courting is?” I find myself saying. Sounding strangely like a grandmother with clotted cream hair and purple eyelids.
Is it supposed to be buried beneath a flurry of sexualised messages, dirty whispers and cyber seduction? Is this how dating goes in the modern world?
These otherworldly, devilish letters and icons lead me through a maze where the end point looks to be a thick fluffy duvet and steady breathing, moaning. Crumbs lurking beneath writhing derrieres, squashed by midnight blues and swollen purples, beg for mercy.
Where’s the inane chat? The everyday tube dilemmas? The tepid English air making you croak out messages of discontent and strife?
The ‘whatcha been up tos’, the ‘how’s your day goings’ – those have frittered away in the sweat-saddled heat, morphing into ‘i want you nows’ and ‘talk dirty to mes’ and that’s where the courting feels alien. Messages sent from another planet from a little green man with an erect penis.
It takes a great deal out of me
I had lengthy midnight cyber kisses with a boy who looks like Jim Morrison.
The conversation grew on feeble, fecund words about sports and television. We reeled off quotes like a game of table tennis and peculiar deep self talk.
You asked me to describe myself as if I were in an interview. And after my thumbs clicked and words harpooned themselves onto my message bar (the word “typing” forever appearing) I knew I’d become stuck in the treacle-like web that is lusting after somebody I’d never met before.
It’s a sticky mess of pink and grey – a stark contrast between what you think you know and what you actually do.
He’s the Jim to my Pam. He’s the waffle I want to wake up to. The whipped cream I want to guzzle. The song I’d like to keep on repeat.
Or is he?
Maybe he’s vacuous and selfish. Artistically-driven but pretentiously-inclined. Beneath his beard are lies and beneath his eyelids are sadness and maybe he’s not what I think he is.
Still, those midnight cyber kisses prevailed. I felt my eyes become doused in fiery fatigue, begging to close, but unwilling to do so while the conversation flowed like melted chocolate.
He said I was attractive and that’s when I fell to my knees. Too busy relishing in the idea that somebody liked me, too caught up in this fleeting feeling of self-worth that I found it hard once the medicine had worn off… to be pleased with myself.
Because if I can act like that – like a slippery, giggly schoolgirl whose self-esteem bar has only just begun to lift off the ground, then I’m further back than I thought. Further down the gym rope than I’d anticipated. Further back on my journey of tube stops to Self Confidence Street or Extoverted Alley.
Eventually we said farewell. I left my phone off airplane mode, longing to hear that chipper buzz in the small hours… a sign you were thinking of me.
And then I wrestle with my duvet and push my face into my pillow and scream.
Because I don’t even know you, Jim.
Talking to my pillow. 