At The Amersham Arms
Angel pricks her index to the inside of my cheek, checking for wisdom. All my sisters bat their eyes. I lose my cool. Smoking to make conversation. That’s how loving works. Gravedigging in the alley of Lewisham's video store. I’m translating everything. Knuckles to desire. Your hand to her thigh. Twenty love poems and other nonsense. In the bathroom, eleven freaks are reenacting Mayakovsky’s suicide note. Believing maybe this is exactly what they want. A good fuck and a vision. The one hundred miracles of an alarm. Right beside you, the music stops. Angel is jaw open, pinned by her left wing. Make me a man, I tell her. Make me a man. Twenty love poems and no desperation. How the night ends inside you, to the left around her ribcage. Cum on your stomach, hands soaked, tied down. I want to watch you get bored of this. Read your poem in the multipurpose community room, and drink. With all the lights off. Angel shoots herself in the leg. Hopping over to the man in green swim trunks. A Royal Navy x Fendi collaboration. Angel. I know a communist when I see one.
At the Royal George
As we walk over the bending, two art majors push a metaphor into traffic. Elena disagrees whether or not this means we’re done for. There’s no good way to start this conversation. At the bar I can finally flaunt my paycheck. £3.65. You know a week passes at twenty-eight pence per minute, that before poetry there were graveyards toppled over by annotations. It’s a game to remember this much. People that you knew from university leaning against the wall, speaking about the people they knew from university, and maybe you’ve heard of them. But we should get together soon - seriously, it’s been too long. On the radio they’re confident that all guilty parties have been caught and there’s no longer any reason for alarm. We can be sure of that. I use the noise to hide from my friends. Become the kind of drunk that only looks backwards. I think of my father’s uncle, dying from just that. Perfect heirlooms. Our final round. Dear Patricia, your child is playing hopscotch below the poverty line. Stop airbrushing your workers on the security camera. There’s nothing to do here but watch us. Turning for a fix. Jasmine dies under the space-heater of a rented flat. Folds my beer into three perfect concentric circles. I’d ask you to help me out of this. But when the East-dream drummer starts keeping rhythm with the overground, Elena knows we got a purpose. Even if we end up two streets away, counting on the bartender. Convinced tonight is the night I should tell you I’m failing. And you shouldn’t worry, but ask me about it tomorrow.
There's always something new to try
Mary walks in reciting some self-reflection. The ego loves to make us into a project. Like you’re a tragedy remembering itself. Like you can keep a parasocial relationship with your appeals. What I was saying is you don’t have to refute yourself just to feel something. You have still a fantasy for exile. Whatever you want to have tomorrow. And of course, this. There’s always this. Even when everybody comes in lousy-headed and feeling so free. That’s when you take a hammer to every mirror in the British Museum, ask someone to cry with you. Say I would like to be saved now. But that’s no one’s responsibility. You know that. Everyone knows as much. Still I can’t help putting all my favourite things onto the train tracks. At the busiest time. And for you, it’s probably getting repetitive. Did I tell you where I came from? Can I ask you what you’re thinking? It’s another one of those days. The murmur of contextualisation. Letting the moon scream profanities in the spirit of trying. Twenty dead pigeons everywhere.
