Where am I?
sat in a room,
the sound of light opera fills the air.
the occasional car going by outside
an early summer warmth, the heating is off,
as is the sun, for it is night.
I sense waves of the invisible around me.
Saw reflections on windows tonight
fancied them to be ghosts of the ancient Chinese art
come to watch progress of what they began and passed down.
The night is calm, my computer hums.
Where are we?
Alive in motion I suppose, orbiting.
Everything orbits,
Even thoughts orbit in the mind’s eye.
a tiger jumps in there, I don’t know why or from where.
It inflates within me and I let it.
Feel its paws in my hands, its soft white-fur belly in my chest.
Tiger, tiger burning bright…
and all that jazz.
What am I?
Destiny was not that strong in me, so I remained a wanderer
merely flirted with the arts
never really becoming passionate for long.
Changing, always, hunting novelty,
wanting to belong but moving on.
Nothing original or satisfying
but not bland enough to be dissatisfying either.
Just mediocre and medium like the rest.
Nothing wrong, but neither is it right.
Tonight I want to change my life,
but tomorrow it will just carry on as was.
Now is not the time to be writing but it is the only time I have got.
Days, long drawn out days watching the clock,
desperate to escape my binds.
No where to run
no way to alter the path of the moving train.
Come alive in me tiger
I beg of you, come alive.
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Up-tilted erection
I’ve got to try for a new angle
Its all out there in the world
Crazy whores, gambling, guns, drugs, sex, violence
Most times you avoid it but sometimes
You wish you could find it.
It’s a tough thing putting your life in order.
It’s worse still when you succeed,
only to discover boredom is more deadly
than any nightlife poor man’s street hustle, or hunt to survive.
And you sit and watch the TV, not even thinking.
Dressed in an ill fitting suit, slouched in a tired chair
bent by routine into the shape of your ass.
Your wife cooks cheap GM food in the kitchen
and a film of wafer thin adipocre covers your eyes in a glaze.
Your kids are outside getting dirty in the trash,
but you are over, you don’t even drink no more.
Just watch the news with a vacant stare and wait for the football
So you can go to bed and get up again tomorrow and do it all again.
You drift off for a moment and dream of shoving a chrome dildo shaped like a rhino horn up the ass of a prostitute…
Your wife wakes you up with a plate of beef and soggy potatoes
You rest it on your up-tilted erection and watch it slowly fade.
Its all out there in the world
Crazy whores, gambling, guns, drugs, sex, violence
Most times you avoid it but sometimes
You wish you could find it.
It’s a tough thing putting your life in order.
It’s worse still when you succeed,
only to discover boredom is more deadly
than any nightlife poor man’s street hustle, or hunt to survive.
And you sit and watch the TV, not even thinking.
Dressed in an ill fitting suit, slouched in a tired chair
bent by routine into the shape of your ass.
Your wife cooks cheap GM food in the kitchen
and a film of wafer thin adipocre covers your eyes in a glaze.
Your kids are outside getting dirty in the trash,
but you are over, you don’t even drink no more.
Just watch the news with a vacant stare and wait for the football
So you can go to bed and get up again tomorrow and do it all again.
You drift off for a moment and dream of shoving a chrome dildo shaped like a rhino horn up the ass of a prostitute…
Your wife wakes you up with a plate of beef and soggy potatoes
You rest it on your up-tilted erection and watch it slowly fade.
Infidelity and lust
I get up to a beautiful March day, the sun is rising and throwing warm golden light onto the houses at the back of my yard. Birds sing and traffic flies by. Things aint so bad, I tell myself. I still have some fire in the blood with which to push on through.
Yes I do.
So I fumble about my room and find a different set of shades, I put them on. Rose tinted motherfuckers and things look even better. Fuck, I might even feel a sense of happiness and peace today if I keep working at it. Last night I heard a tap at my bedroom door. I let her in. She looked bemused, a little forlorn, a little confused. She carried in her bossom and womb healing ju-ju for me. She didnt know this, she was just following and instinct. I was thirsty and I was ready to drink greedily, savagely from her.
‘Can I come in?’ she asked politely but before she had finished I had grabbed her wrist, thrown her against the wall, shut the door and was pushing my tongue like a snake deep into her mouth. I was mining for ore, my energy was tunneling into her looking for life giving sustenance, the stuff only women can bring to a man. She submitted to me, she felt good and that made me feel better. She felt hot and that released the dragon and it broke free, through my finger tips it soared pulling at her belt, ripping her trousers down to her ankles, snake tongue kissing again, deeply, lovingly in the magic of newness and forbidden lust. We were alight, like fireflies if you could have seen us, the soft penumbra of my candle lit room flickered shadows round the wall, ancient spirits all come to watch and feast on the moment. This was the animal world, animist and spiritual, this was sex. I turned her around and slipped into her, we both cooed to feel that chemistry ignite and we rolled into it, pushed into it, we burned in its combusting flame, and it felt good. It felt like life was real for a moment. It felt like we were free because we were.
A noise disturbed us, reality had come in the front door downstairs and in a moment the alchemy turned on itself and a poison broke into the purity of the mix. The poison of guilt, fear, panic, realisation. In an instant all hell broke lose where moments before we had let our minds go, had relinquished control to some normally dormant force within us both, we had been creating private volcanic beauty, growing it in the moment, cleansing ourselves with it, healing ourselves with that ju-ju. Now the poison spread fast, through our relaxed shields it went meeting no resistance and straight into our hearts like a dagger, a hyperdemic needle.
‘Get dressed!’ she hissed
‘Oh fuck him, he wont come in here’ I said adamantly and annoyed to be disturbed by anything in such a perfect moment. They were too rare to waste for anyone, not even for Justice or Death.
‘He cant know’ she said
‘He wont if you can be convincing and stop panicking!’ I insisted.
She knew what I was saying, she breathed deeply, tied the buckle on her belt. Checked her hair and stared at me with a more relaxed smile. I was sitting on the bed, my loose trousers already back on after the first panic. I just watched her and tried to calm myself. I knew strength and confidence and above all complete dishonesty were needed at this moment and they required calm. I was making myself calm, slowly the mood overtook her rabid refrain and she knew what I knew. She breathed deeply again.
‘So...’ I said and paused a while as if to lead her into the next line of a play. She just stood there staring into my eyes. This wasnt quite what I meant. Calm was one thing, numb passivity was another.
‘....so, I can cut your hair with a bit of a shatter style to it or we can just trim it and keep the shape you have. By the way what are we going to do about that incident with the landlord, I dont think it was us and there is no reason we should have to pay.’
She looked a little uncertain as I began to talk nonsense, but it dawned on her that we needed to bring ourselves back down. Slowly it got through. She began to play along. The game of life. We were back. We would get away with it this time. When the clatter of noise outside my room stopped she left and returned to hers. I breathed a sigh of relief. I didnt feel good about what had happened but I refused to feel bad. I lay on my bed and smoked for a while staring out into the night. I understood this, I did. But I didnt like it, and yet, somehow, as long as it was only ever our secret, as long as it never broke into the light of any one else's mind, then it was a good thing. She was healing ju-ju to me, and I was the same to her. This much I knew. This was the truth. But if anyone ever found out, the opposite would become true. And in that lay the very core of life’s paradox.
I also understood something else; the reason we feel guilty is because we dont want it to happen to us. Guilt is based on self interest. I wondered if I was as cold a person as I would be judged to be if this tale came out. All I ever wanted was to feel that magic heal me. I never meant to hurt anyone but the price of mining for those diamonds is a high one, sometimes the highest, there is always going to be blood of the heart spilled for it someplace. On the one hand I felt happier than I had for months as I lay in that bed, I knew sex was the cure in that moment, the chemistry of it healed, the magic of fresh lust was the ingredient not love, not familiarity, but quick burning instantaneous lust, the sort that doesnt last. That was the stuff. Maybe I was addicted to it, or maybe I was cured by it. I couldnt tell. I felt happy, I felt released, I felt peace and contentment. But on the other hand I felt like the lowest bastard ever to walk the earth, and by rights, that was exactly what I was.
Yes I do.
So I fumble about my room and find a different set of shades, I put them on. Rose tinted motherfuckers and things look even better. Fuck, I might even feel a sense of happiness and peace today if I keep working at it. Last night I heard a tap at my bedroom door. I let her in. She looked bemused, a little forlorn, a little confused. She carried in her bossom and womb healing ju-ju for me. She didnt know this, she was just following and instinct. I was thirsty and I was ready to drink greedily, savagely from her.
‘Can I come in?’ she asked politely but before she had finished I had grabbed her wrist, thrown her against the wall, shut the door and was pushing my tongue like a snake deep into her mouth. I was mining for ore, my energy was tunneling into her looking for life giving sustenance, the stuff only women can bring to a man. She submitted to me, she felt good and that made me feel better. She felt hot and that released the dragon and it broke free, through my finger tips it soared pulling at her belt, ripping her trousers down to her ankles, snake tongue kissing again, deeply, lovingly in the magic of newness and forbidden lust. We were alight, like fireflies if you could have seen us, the soft penumbra of my candle lit room flickered shadows round the wall, ancient spirits all come to watch and feast on the moment. This was the animal world, animist and spiritual, this was sex. I turned her around and slipped into her, we both cooed to feel that chemistry ignite and we rolled into it, pushed into it, we burned in its combusting flame, and it felt good. It felt like life was real for a moment. It felt like we were free because we were.
A noise disturbed us, reality had come in the front door downstairs and in a moment the alchemy turned on itself and a poison broke into the purity of the mix. The poison of guilt, fear, panic, realisation. In an instant all hell broke lose where moments before we had let our minds go, had relinquished control to some normally dormant force within us both, we had been creating private volcanic beauty, growing it in the moment, cleansing ourselves with it, healing ourselves with that ju-ju. Now the poison spread fast, through our relaxed shields it went meeting no resistance and straight into our hearts like a dagger, a hyperdemic needle.
‘Get dressed!’ she hissed
‘Oh fuck him, he wont come in here’ I said adamantly and annoyed to be disturbed by anything in such a perfect moment. They were too rare to waste for anyone, not even for Justice or Death.
‘He cant know’ she said
‘He wont if you can be convincing and stop panicking!’ I insisted.
She knew what I was saying, she breathed deeply, tied the buckle on her belt. Checked her hair and stared at me with a more relaxed smile. I was sitting on the bed, my loose trousers already back on after the first panic. I just watched her and tried to calm myself. I knew strength and confidence and above all complete dishonesty were needed at this moment and they required calm. I was making myself calm, slowly the mood overtook her rabid refrain and she knew what I knew. She breathed deeply again.
‘So...’ I said and paused a while as if to lead her into the next line of a play. She just stood there staring into my eyes. This wasnt quite what I meant. Calm was one thing, numb passivity was another.
‘....so, I can cut your hair with a bit of a shatter style to it or we can just trim it and keep the shape you have. By the way what are we going to do about that incident with the landlord, I dont think it was us and there is no reason we should have to pay.’
She looked a little uncertain as I began to talk nonsense, but it dawned on her that we needed to bring ourselves back down. Slowly it got through. She began to play along. The game of life. We were back. We would get away with it this time. When the clatter of noise outside my room stopped she left and returned to hers. I breathed a sigh of relief. I didnt feel good about what had happened but I refused to feel bad. I lay on my bed and smoked for a while staring out into the night. I understood this, I did. But I didnt like it, and yet, somehow, as long as it was only ever our secret, as long as it never broke into the light of any one else's mind, then it was a good thing. She was healing ju-ju to me, and I was the same to her. This much I knew. This was the truth. But if anyone ever found out, the opposite would become true. And in that lay the very core of life’s paradox.
I also understood something else; the reason we feel guilty is because we dont want it to happen to us. Guilt is based on self interest. I wondered if I was as cold a person as I would be judged to be if this tale came out. All I ever wanted was to feel that magic heal me. I never meant to hurt anyone but the price of mining for those diamonds is a high one, sometimes the highest, there is always going to be blood of the heart spilled for it someplace. On the one hand I felt happier than I had for months as I lay in that bed, I knew sex was the cure in that moment, the chemistry of it healed, the magic of fresh lust was the ingredient not love, not familiarity, but quick burning instantaneous lust, the sort that doesnt last. That was the stuff. Maybe I was addicted to it, or maybe I was cured by it. I couldnt tell. I felt happy, I felt released, I felt peace and contentment. But on the other hand I felt like the lowest bastard ever to walk the earth, and by rights, that was exactly what I was.
Days spent too busy surviving to write...
Been so busy no time to write. No inclination as life roller-coastered me down a crazy tube. I am in Sydney still, for the record. Been working, struggling to keep my head above the debt line. But I can't complain. I have new friends here, I think they'll become good friends, and my brother is my life line when things get tough. I decided the lifestyle was better if a little more cruel somehow. So I am building a new life, I saw the date of my return to UK come and go. I watched the plane fly up from Sydney airport and said goodbye to a part of myself that went with it. I felt all the tears of loss and pain. I'll miss them all; good friends, good times, good days. All swopped for the loneliness of a city I am unknown in. Why? Just because something in my soul said it was time to follow opportunity so I did. Disobey the gods at your peril.
I lit a smoke, let the puff drift out over the balcony, catch the air and disappear. I imagined it took my homesick blues and nostalgia with it. I needed a distraction else I was likely to get dark and mean. So I took the lift down to the street, wandered around Kings Cross for a while letting the wildness soothe me, then fell into a bar and got blind drunk to celebrate or mourn I wasnt quite sure. 3 hours later, still alone but with double vision, a middle aged hooker suggested we shoot up cocaine and have sex.
'I'm retired' I said, knowing that in truth the only thing stopping me was probably the fact I had spent all my cash on booze.
I stumbled back to the flat, passed out on the bed in my clothes and woke up to a hang over. Welcome to Australia, I thought, they are gonna love me here.
I lit a smoke, let the puff drift out over the balcony, catch the air and disappear. I imagined it took my homesick blues and nostalgia with it. I needed a distraction else I was likely to get dark and mean. So I took the lift down to the street, wandered around Kings Cross for a while letting the wildness soothe me, then fell into a bar and got blind drunk to celebrate or mourn I wasnt quite sure. 3 hours later, still alone but with double vision, a middle aged hooker suggested we shoot up cocaine and have sex.
'I'm retired' I said, knowing that in truth the only thing stopping me was probably the fact I had spent all my cash on booze.
I stumbled back to the flat, passed out on the bed in my clothes and woke up to a hang over. Welcome to Australia, I thought, they are gonna love me here.
Monday, 25 February 2008
I am i
I only notice the loneliness when I am in the company of people. Surrounded by strangers I have to talk to, I find I have nothing to say, I find it hurts.
Got an email today from my step-dad, he is 69 and just got dumped. He moved to Vermont from Corsica for this woman, on her insistence, who now has decided to return to her ex-husband in Switzerland or some such where. I am not laying blame here...but for fucks sake. Women are crazy, you learn this with time, yet it still catches you out. Until someone devises a truly workable alternative, we are stuck with them.
I like the cafe culture, I have come to feel at my most stable and peaceful in a quiet corner of a bustling city cafe where I can write undisturbed, where people I will never have to speak to drift by me never to be seen again. We will never run out of new faces to look at and I am glad. Even from the darkest, most cruel and cold nights I can find solace here in the daylight, in anonymity, amongst all these strangers, with just a pen for company. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. I can relax here. Here, I am happy to let life slowly slip away from me. Other peoples busy-ness somehow exonerates me from it all.
I have a fucking big smile on my face and a warm feeling in my heart. A melancholic tune plays in the background and twangs a little on my heartstrings, just enough to make me feel this moment is real. I suddenly feel like striking a guitar pose and shouting at the top of my lungs – ‘FUCK YEA!’
I have to return to my digs shortly, have to talk to people again, people I know. I have to make sense. Say not what I am thinking, but what is appropriate and acceptable and least likely to cause offense. I will speak and listen to emptiness and wonder why or what could possibly be said to make it better.
I don’t believe I will die before tasting love again. I hope I can meet its expectations. I had hoped to find fulfilment out here in this new country. I guess I always was a romantic dreamer. Who knows, maybe she exists, maybe she does. Just try to remember – women are crazy. It’s not hard to make it work, you just have to play it right; Don’t sink too deep in comfort, don’t let too much of yourself go, and always keep an eye on the exit routes.
I sat by the pool today, watched a man pull a small terrapin from a plastic box. He petted its head then kissed it, all the while talking coochy-coo. I was struck by how contentedly in love he looked. It was some kind of bliss. The thought struck me that he was crazy. Ha! Like we aren’t all driven gently into complete fucking lunacy. I concluded that I was happy for him. I smiled a genuine smile when he looked at me, it gave me a warm feeling, and that seemed somehow a good thing, like it mattered.
Then, I leant my head back, looked up high above the tower block I currently wait in. The sun burning into my skin, burning into my eyes, at once loving yet looking for ways to kill me at the same time. That’s how it is. And love is just another burning sun.
Wars rage someplace far away, man pushes computers into space trying to figure out where, what and why he is. All the while birds, animals and plants just do their thing and already know, or just don’t care. I lie here wondering about all the things there are to wonder, while across from me a simpleton finds completion in an inch long amphibian that can't ever speak or act to hurt him. My step-dad sleeps a fitful sleep of pending pain and anguish on the other side of the world, a pain and loss he is probably too old to heal. Somewhere a new life just entered the world as another one exited. My heart pumps blood without me ever having asked it to, and I have no idea why I came here or what I am supposed to do with it at all.
A sunburst refracts off a broken window not far from where I sit splitting all the colours of life into my eyes and across my words. I feel wondrous. I feel alive, afraid, and despite all my fears or maybe because of them, I am hungry for it.
Got an email today from my step-dad, he is 69 and just got dumped. He moved to Vermont from Corsica for this woman, on her insistence, who now has decided to return to her ex-husband in Switzerland or some such where. I am not laying blame here...but for fucks sake. Women are crazy, you learn this with time, yet it still catches you out. Until someone devises a truly workable alternative, we are stuck with them.
I like the cafe culture, I have come to feel at my most stable and peaceful in a quiet corner of a bustling city cafe where I can write undisturbed, where people I will never have to speak to drift by me never to be seen again. We will never run out of new faces to look at and I am glad. Even from the darkest, most cruel and cold nights I can find solace here in the daylight, in anonymity, amongst all these strangers, with just a pen for company. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. I can relax here. Here, I am happy to let life slowly slip away from me. Other peoples busy-ness somehow exonerates me from it all.
I have a fucking big smile on my face and a warm feeling in my heart. A melancholic tune plays in the background and twangs a little on my heartstrings, just enough to make me feel this moment is real. I suddenly feel like striking a guitar pose and shouting at the top of my lungs – ‘FUCK YEA!’
I have to return to my digs shortly, have to talk to people again, people I know. I have to make sense. Say not what I am thinking, but what is appropriate and acceptable and least likely to cause offense. I will speak and listen to emptiness and wonder why or what could possibly be said to make it better.
I don’t believe I will die before tasting love again. I hope I can meet its expectations. I had hoped to find fulfilment out here in this new country. I guess I always was a romantic dreamer. Who knows, maybe she exists, maybe she does. Just try to remember – women are crazy. It’s not hard to make it work, you just have to play it right; Don’t sink too deep in comfort, don’t let too much of yourself go, and always keep an eye on the exit routes.
I sat by the pool today, watched a man pull a small terrapin from a plastic box. He petted its head then kissed it, all the while talking coochy-coo. I was struck by how contentedly in love he looked. It was some kind of bliss. The thought struck me that he was crazy. Ha! Like we aren’t all driven gently into complete fucking lunacy. I concluded that I was happy for him. I smiled a genuine smile when he looked at me, it gave me a warm feeling, and that seemed somehow a good thing, like it mattered.
Then, I leant my head back, looked up high above the tower block I currently wait in. The sun burning into my skin, burning into my eyes, at once loving yet looking for ways to kill me at the same time. That’s how it is. And love is just another burning sun.
Wars rage someplace far away, man pushes computers into space trying to figure out where, what and why he is. All the while birds, animals and plants just do their thing and already know, or just don’t care. I lie here wondering about all the things there are to wonder, while across from me a simpleton finds completion in an inch long amphibian that can't ever speak or act to hurt him. My step-dad sleeps a fitful sleep of pending pain and anguish on the other side of the world, a pain and loss he is probably too old to heal. Somewhere a new life just entered the world as another one exited. My heart pumps blood without me ever having asked it to, and I have no idea why I came here or what I am supposed to do with it at all.
A sunburst refracts off a broken window not far from where I sit splitting all the colours of life into my eyes and across my words. I feel wondrous. I feel alive, afraid, and despite all my fears or maybe because of them, I am hungry for it.
The last time I fell in love ....
My last five liaisons with women had been disasters one way or another. Coming at a time in my life when I was at my least secure just cemented their demented fear into my subconscious. I didn’t notice it happen, just one day I saw a pretty girl across a bar and a sweat came over me. Next thing I am outside walking home rather than face talking to her. This went on for some months before I realised what was wrong; I was afraid of women, I was afraid of the consequences of talking to one.
I hadn’t felt the warmth of another body in over 8 months, hadn’t heard the words of whispered companionship that gave you meaning for being here in so long it was having a deeply negative effect on me. I was becoming withdrawn and freaked out. Now, I was more likely to push away comfort than embrace it. I was watching this happen to me, and I couldn’t figure what to do about it.
The last time I had slept with a girl had gotten me into a fistfight with her housemate within 15 minutes of consummating the act. The time before that I hadn’t even slept with the girl, she just lay in my bed all night talking, the next day her boyfriend knocked on my door while I was cooking dinner. He threatened to knife me, I threatened to knock him out with a frying pan full of sizzling chicken. It was an interesting standoff. He left. 2 days later I fucked her out of spite. I was angry with him for giving me shit over something I had gone out of my way to avoid. The other tales all run much the same - a litany of bad experiences, lust gone wrong, innocent pleasure turned into evil and sometimes violent, hurtful chaos. Irreparable damage. Now, I was gun-shy, psychologically expectant of trouble if I dared to seek comfort in a female.
I took the only option available to me other than turning queer – I was in a strange town, in a strange country and apparently prostitution was legal here. I stepped up. Waited for a full moon, somehow that seemed the right time. I hailed a taxicab, he was Asian.
‘Where can I get some fucky fucky” I enquired.
‘Whaa?’ he said
‘You know ‘ I made a motion, ‘get some skin, flesh, woman, fucky’
‘You want a brothel’ he said laughing
‘You got it’ I replied.
The first two he took me to had snapping trolls, uglier than sin and scarier than the devils own mother. I wouldn’t have fucked them if they had paid me. In fact I feared for my life and bolted out of the door at the first opportunity. I was starting to think maybe it was time to just shoot myself and be done with it all. I gave it one more chance. The last place was pricier but was exactly what I was looking for. Funny how things can change if you just hold out long enough, and are willing to throw all you have left in the world at it.
I lay on a bed in a mirrored room as Ella stripped and we considered how she would best go to work on satisfying my 200 bucks. She was gorgeous, but it was a rare time in my life when I just wasn’t interested in sex. I wanted her to hold me, to let me near her without the fear of something bad happening to me. Women had driven me to this. I was a fucking mess. God, she was beautiful. The best-looking hooker I had ever seen. She didn’t understand my need for tenderness and she was certainly in no mood to reciprocate it. She was a hooker, I was a punter - a cold dish of unpalatable food. Even so, holding her, breathing her skin, smelling her scent overwhelmed me. I felt like crying in happiness. My eyes shut, my dreams of love, communion with another, the human touch, the sharing, the belief, it was something beautiful, it was something. It sparked again inside me and came back to life. I could believe again. It fed my emptiness.
But the body is a funny thing, it sure doesn’t work by reason. It works on feeling and I let myself open to the idea of love in there. Love maybe of the essence of what women are. It was unbelievably pure to me because it was safe, and I hadnt felt it in too long. I had bought it. It was mine for 30 minutes and for a change it wouldn’t try to kill me. My body liked that. Liked it a lot.
As I stood outside the house of sin some time later, under the awning of a bus stop smiling like an alley cat and blowing smoke up into the blue, moonlit night on the far side of a town I didn’t belong or even much know, it dawned on me that I had gone from the frying pan into the fire; I had fallen in love with a whore called Ella and there was little doubt in my mind that she didn’t love me. That’s the thing, that’s the bitch of it all if you are honest, because you just know that every which way you turn here, you’re gonna lose.
I hadn’t felt the warmth of another body in over 8 months, hadn’t heard the words of whispered companionship that gave you meaning for being here in so long it was having a deeply negative effect on me. I was becoming withdrawn and freaked out. Now, I was more likely to push away comfort than embrace it. I was watching this happen to me, and I couldn’t figure what to do about it.
The last time I had slept with a girl had gotten me into a fistfight with her housemate within 15 minutes of consummating the act. The time before that I hadn’t even slept with the girl, she just lay in my bed all night talking, the next day her boyfriend knocked on my door while I was cooking dinner. He threatened to knife me, I threatened to knock him out with a frying pan full of sizzling chicken. It was an interesting standoff. He left. 2 days later I fucked her out of spite. I was angry with him for giving me shit over something I had gone out of my way to avoid. The other tales all run much the same - a litany of bad experiences, lust gone wrong, innocent pleasure turned into evil and sometimes violent, hurtful chaos. Irreparable damage. Now, I was gun-shy, psychologically expectant of trouble if I dared to seek comfort in a female.
I took the only option available to me other than turning queer – I was in a strange town, in a strange country and apparently prostitution was legal here. I stepped up. Waited for a full moon, somehow that seemed the right time. I hailed a taxicab, he was Asian.
‘Where can I get some fucky fucky” I enquired.
‘Whaa?’ he said
‘You know ‘ I made a motion, ‘get some skin, flesh, woman, fucky’
‘You want a brothel’ he said laughing
‘You got it’ I replied.
The first two he took me to had snapping trolls, uglier than sin and scarier than the devils own mother. I wouldn’t have fucked them if they had paid me. In fact I feared for my life and bolted out of the door at the first opportunity. I was starting to think maybe it was time to just shoot myself and be done with it all. I gave it one more chance. The last place was pricier but was exactly what I was looking for. Funny how things can change if you just hold out long enough, and are willing to throw all you have left in the world at it.
I lay on a bed in a mirrored room as Ella stripped and we considered how she would best go to work on satisfying my 200 bucks. She was gorgeous, but it was a rare time in my life when I just wasn’t interested in sex. I wanted her to hold me, to let me near her without the fear of something bad happening to me. Women had driven me to this. I was a fucking mess. God, she was beautiful. The best-looking hooker I had ever seen. She didn’t understand my need for tenderness and she was certainly in no mood to reciprocate it. She was a hooker, I was a punter - a cold dish of unpalatable food. Even so, holding her, breathing her skin, smelling her scent overwhelmed me. I felt like crying in happiness. My eyes shut, my dreams of love, communion with another, the human touch, the sharing, the belief, it was something beautiful, it was something. It sparked again inside me and came back to life. I could believe again. It fed my emptiness.
But the body is a funny thing, it sure doesn’t work by reason. It works on feeling and I let myself open to the idea of love in there. Love maybe of the essence of what women are. It was unbelievably pure to me because it was safe, and I hadnt felt it in too long. I had bought it. It was mine for 30 minutes and for a change it wouldn’t try to kill me. My body liked that. Liked it a lot.
As I stood outside the house of sin some time later, under the awning of a bus stop smiling like an alley cat and blowing smoke up into the blue, moonlit night on the far side of a town I didn’t belong or even much know, it dawned on me that I had gone from the frying pan into the fire; I had fallen in love with a whore called Ella and there was little doubt in my mind that she didn’t love me. That’s the thing, that’s the bitch of it all if you are honest, because you just know that every which way you turn here, you’re gonna lose.
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Where I belong
Morning down Oxford Street. Sunny.
Brisk walk to Crown street. INXS’s old studios.
Last few weeks for the first time I have begun to relax here. Still got some tension in the jaw, strange how some things are beyond our control yet within us, all we can do is wait and beat a path towards their resolve, if they wish it be.
Read a morning paper, I always arrive early, especially on a first date.
8am, an hour to go.
Sit in the Sacred Ground cafe. A dog eyes me from the street in wonder. The sun makes the day fresh. The studio awaits; where I belong, my home, my sacred ground.
Brisk walk to Crown street. INXS’s old studios.
Last few weeks for the first time I have begun to relax here. Still got some tension in the jaw, strange how some things are beyond our control yet within us, all we can do is wait and beat a path towards their resolve, if they wish it be.
Read a morning paper, I always arrive early, especially on a first date.
8am, an hour to go.
Sit in the Sacred Ground cafe. A dog eyes me from the street in wonder. The sun makes the day fresh. The studio awaits; where I belong, my home, my sacred ground.
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