Subscribe now

I wrote this many years ago when I was feeling very disappointed in the protest movement. I saw a lot of people getting beaten up and zero systemic change happening. I started to question its power.

I don't feel like this any more.

She leans on the counter and tidies the ribbons. Two people with receding hair jog past. They wear short, high waisted shorts and ribbed red running vests. They run in rhythm with each other. They wah in rhythm with their running. “Whah whah! Whah whah! Whah whah! Whah whah!” Not far behind them runs a bigger group, similarly dressed, more rhythm. She notices their bibs. WE WANT shouts one. GIVE IT TO US NOW demands another. The proggers. Protesting joggers. The latest craze.

Theoretically proggers can put anything they want on their bibs. In reality all they ever have are empty demands. Demanding nothing, now.

The really dedicated ones carry placards, for extra arm resistance. And the whole charade is completed by the aggressive mock police chase. Personal trainers clad in safety-conscious high visibility jackets.

The simultaneous mockery of protest and admittance of its status as sport succeeds; it kills it dead. There is no point. Even if someone was serious, they would pass for proggers and be forgiven. Allowed to carry on. Unchallenged.

Several popular theories circulate. One school of progger thought is that doing little but often will eventually have a bigger effect than the big, loud outbursts of yesteryear. Keep doing your small bit, every day, and reap the results; be listened to, be earnestly involved, be part, be remembered. Of course, their only common goal was self-improvement. Occasionally, a few asked for MORE GREEN SPACE or BETTER EDUCATION NOW but these were always fads and they’d be pleading for something else the following week.

She is not at all surprised. What is there left to shout about? If you shout you might actually get, and once you get you’re stuck with it. Everything is fine.

Some believe that repression will cause explosion. But all those happy hormones unleashed through exercise take care of that. Progging is addictive. And football hooliganism has significantly reduced.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

when conversation
will never go beyond
how nice your dress is
and blending in feels ‘tractive,
normal,
friendlier
than the continuously stalling
non start of anything

when out of love,
hope,
normality,
curiosity
you make the openest of gestures
and they’re not thrown back in your face with answers
but ignored completely
as if they were just flat
spaces like all the others
like nothing happened

when talk that’s started
to provoke amusement
ends up in boring declarations of
sincerity
and you don’t know where to look
how awkward, how misinterpreted

when despite knowing it
you stubbornly, aggressively, obsessively
keep going the wrong way
pushing on and on
applying, begging
perversely pleasuring from others’
shiny, streamline happiness
whilst personally refusing to do the same

and when you get that
real sense of achievement
from finally waving a prescription
so you can say “i’ve made it
now. i’m one of them!”

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

not wanting to participate
yet needing to explain
redeem, avoid offending
all out of…
fear of rejection…
but of what?
of me?
my thoughts?
my rights?
of thinking along different fucking lines?
why bother?
why does this plague me?
when everyone can see
it’s boring, wrong, unnecessary
just be.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

To get in you have to know a code. The code is to know them. Only I don’t know this yet. Don’t know anyone. Not really. Didn’t go to school there. Live miles away.

I have not come on a clear mission. I have been propelled, awkwardly, with several bumpy landings, by a raw hollowness. My previous content is currently unidentifiable but I vaguely recall the taste. It was fresh and thick and crunchy and provided a sufficient amount of energy. Will they serve the filling?

The taxi is driving slowly up a dark back lane. I slide around the back seat. “I’m not leaving you ‘till we find it, love” the driver keeps insisting.

It’s cold and wet but I am certain I’ll be fine. I phone the scribbled number but all I hear are loud beats and someone saying something about a gate. The place is full of gates. Big metal ones, at least five meters high. And brick walls in between them, some higher than the gate, all very daunting. Still, I know it’s fine.

“I think it’s here!” I lie and pay. He answers but I’m already running along the pavement. I find it.

Inside, in front of me, two very similar girls are softly jerking to the music. A group of snake-like humans emerge from behind the doors we are awaiting our turn to enter. Gold and silver and entangled in each other like brambles. Another small group disappears inside. A snake stops for hugs and shirks. It turns out we are waiting for the bathroom. And there are more people inside, sitting in the dry bath and up against the shiny, dirty walls. The toilet bowl is shielded by a dithering curtain. It isn’t hiding anything.

I look around. “You’ll be aright” some long curly lion hair smiles at me. Ah, fuck it. Everyone’s too fucked to care anyway.

The glitz and the glitch and the hop and the hip, there’s a fucking trilby poking me in the face. And your cheeks and your fucking antelope head gear. You’re not fucking bambi.

Ordinarily I prefer to keep myself away. Away from people. Away from relentless bla bla bla. The less chance I have to speak the less likely I am to jinx all the good things almost happening. They’re so close, tip of my bristly tongue.

Too drunk to control my bowels, not drunk enough not to notice. Oh shit. The curtain and the door have forgotten their roles. No one’s muffling the noise. Big crap.

I re-emerge and no one reacts. No one points. No one laughs. No one holds their nose, or discreetly breathes their scarf.

I stand at the mirror to apply my party face; drunkenly exaggerating it all. Pink and orange, flicks and glitter. Clown woman.

Apparently it’s not enough. She starts scribbling on my skin with a stupid black pen because someone once told her it’d be cool to say your job is to paint face. Fuck off. But no. This is her kingdom. I have been marked.

I sit on the edge of that stupid bathtub, talking to one of the similar girls. She looks irritating and strange, compulsive viewing. Turns out that I am not an entertainment facilitation agency and I have to leave the room.

Everything is satisfyingly solid. I am weightless, floating in a fuchsia bubble of softness. My sinuses are engulfed in prickly felt. The vapours scratch my insides, creating tiny wounds in my raw flesh so they can reach me quicker. I have been waiting for this for so long. I want to swim in the violet glow coming from the climbing tropical geraniums. It looks so thick I could mould it into a hanging decoration.

A fuzzy, bearded man is holding my hand and telling me about a party. Another one. Last summer. I’d heard something about it. Was invited to the event.

“That was you? No way!” I am impressed and make vanilla smoke come out of the pink rolling paper.

I’m more impressed at the envelope of crimson engulfing me as I smell the rose-like flower resting on my shoulder. Sharp. The smell is painful. Deliciously, familiarly, knife-like.

He asks me who I'm here with.

“My mate’s mate’s dads a pilot. He flies everywhere free, first class” I say.

He looks at me “What? Why did you ruin it?”

I am confused. “What do you mean?”

“What kind of a story is that?”

“It’s great! He flies everywhere for free! First class! I think it’s really interesting!” my eyes are full of that iridescent glitter. He asks me who I'm here with. I use my one good eye to stare, then kiss him.

The bear man looks at me then sniffs the purple lilies next to him, blooming so much they’re bursting. He pulls them to me. I breathe. I’m elevated. I drift above the big wooden canteen table. Everyone looks soft, ripe, ready. Bright colours and people melt into each other. A floral orgy. I feel safe and awkward. All around me are colours. Millions of blues, yellows, oranges, pinks, reds, whites. And the greens. Oh the greens. There are countless varieties.

Dark and old, prickly, light, delicate and almost translucent.

“Your lips are so beautifully blue” he touches them.

I’d heard about this place.

I’d wanted more.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

The day started around 5:30am, when I could no longer ignore my bursting bladder and defeatedly stumbled over a heap of man and dog legs, out of the bed, through the small caravan door and, balancing on a wobbly, worn-out wooden pallet, reached under our small home to grab my piss pot. The piss pot was a saucepan we’d once used to boil pasta, potatoes and maybe some buckwheat. I was naked (it was August and an unusually hot one. Although when you live on an island with regularly record-breaking weather, you stop paying attention. Everything was climate change these days anyway) and hoped that none of our four neighbours would spot me from across the small field. Back inside, I squatted. Ordinarily, the pot was the perfect size. It could hold just a bit more liquid than my bladder can before it starts demanding to be emptied IMMEDIATELY. But this day was different. I don’t know for sure if it overflowed or if I momentarily missed, but either way we ended up with a puddle of piss on the carpet. Never mind. I soaked it up with kitchen towels (my biggest non zero waste vice since living this “alternative” lifestyle. I don’t think I’d ever once bought kitchen towels when I lived in a flat) and plopped a tea towel on top to protect the man and dog’s feet. And then I crawled back into bed, determined to sleep until my alarm went off. Needless to say, this happened moments later, followed by the man’s alarm, followed by the second attempt of mine and so on until I was firmly out of bed and making tea at 6:15am. Anyway, what I was trying to say was it was an early start.

The man with legs drove me to the train station in plenty of time and I bought an extortionately priced ticket to London. It was the early morning commute, so lucrative for train companies because it’s a must for many, and I would never have allowed myself such an extravagance but I’d booked the van for 13:30, which should just about let us miss the traffic, even with 30 minutes loading time factored in. And anyway, the difference between this and a cheap off-peak ticket was the cost of a cheap Airbnb, which I would’ve had to pay if I’d come last night.

Subscribe now

As I walked along the platform at my destination, I noticed something unusual. It was busy. There were more people around me, walking close to me, than there had been for months. Unlike before, they were wearing masks. But they didn’t seem scared to be near me, and there were enough of them to make distance less comfortably possible. IT WAS RUSHOUR! A very slim, lite, fat free and zero sugar version, but rush hour nonetheless. Rejoice!

I felt normal for the first time in so long. Everything was basically normal. I said this a lot in the weeks and months following lockdown. “Town was basically normal today on my way to work! None of the shops were open but PEOPLE WERE OUT!”

“Town was basically normal today! Everyone was wearing masks and queued to get in but SOME SHOPS WERE OPEN!”

“Everything is basically back to normal now! I got told off for walking into the bank without my mask and then shouted at for using the wrong entrance to go into the supermarket BUT…” And so on.

Anyway, everything did feel more normal. People had a purpose again and I was vibing hard off their buzz. London two months after lockdown is a wonderful kind of London. Not deserted but also far from bursting. Comfortably busy. Pleasantly bustling. It’s also an awful kind of London.

Homelessness has changed. Homelessness looks like the girl who poured a double skinny oat latte into your toxin-shedding, pseudo eco-friendly reusable cup every morning (I read something about bamboo cups releasing toxins when above 70C). It looks like the guy you walked past every day on your way to work, the one you stood next to on the tube. It’s the person you sometimes recognised in the queue at the little late night supermarket. You both liked humous.

Share

London’s new homeless look fresh. Clean, fresh, and bewildered. What the fuck is happening? How can this be happening to them? What can I do? Do they want to talk to me, to be bothered? What will I do after they tell me their story? Where are the outreach services walking the streets, getting to know every new face on the pavement, making sure they are safe, fed, supported? I stand and stare and don’t know if I will do more harm or good by invading what’s left of their privacy.

The friendliness everyone has acquired during lockdown – maybe I’m confusing it with gratefulness to be amongst humans again – has already disappeared. The bus driver ignores me when I ask him if he is driving to Marble Arch. And I surprise myself by responding with “fucking Londoners!” as he shuts the doors in my face and drives off. Goodness, where did I get that from?

Leave a comment

I forget to gawp at the big hotel on Park Lane or at stretches of Hyde Park, too involved with my phone. I look up just in time to notice that Lizzie is having some work done on one of her little houses by the brick wall topped with barbed wire that surrounds her palace. I live in a country with monarchy. It’s almost like we’re in Game of Thrones.

We stop on the bridge. For years I used to tell people that the view from the bridges was the reason I lived in London. And I still love it. But it’s cluttered. It’s so freaking cluttered and full of half finished construction that I don’t know where to look to find my London. Anyway, we carry on.

My friend with whom I’d arranged to meet at 10 so he can help me take things to recycling and charity shops and whatnot texts to say he’s 40 minutes early and I get there 10 minutes later than promised, already sweaty and irritable.

The first part of the big day goes fairly smoothly. We take a big load of stuff to the recycling bins in the car park of a large supermarket. The bins are already overflowing. We shove and squeeze my life in.

I realise that the woman from the storage place was talking about the thin fox I’d seen earlier “oh I know! It’s taking me all I have not to put water out for it!” PUT THE FUCKING WATER OUT FOR IT!!! WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? IT’S BEEN DRY FOR DAYS, THE SUN IS SCORCHING, AND THE FOX IS ALIVE!!!!

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

All you do when you criticise yourself is miss opportunities. I’m not talking about reflection – reflect away, examine the situation, but always have your own back. And fuck off anyone who exasperates your self-criticism. They are feeding off your energy. They are quite literally sucking the life out of you.

I know it’s more complicated than that. What if that person is your mum, or your best friend? I don’t know. Tell them to stop. You must stick up for yourself; have your own back. You definitely can’t believe their shit.

I was a beacon for self-haters in my 20s. People who were disappointed in themselves, or who thought they were somehow less than others. I tried to level with them, to stuff myself within the same confines they were oppressed by. I put so much energy into strapping myself in and pushing myself down. And yet I didn’t know any of this. At the time life felt like phantasy, like a dream. And it was.

For every five days spent in painful restriction, half heartedly wearing an imitation of conservative commitment to labour, spectacularly failing to meet their expectations of robotic compliance, there were 55 hours of pure splendid freedom, of shimmery theatrics, of being, feeling, seeing everything.

And it felt so real. It was life. It was the only reason to live.

Those 55 weekly hours were covered in sparkles, dusted with so much glitter, absolutely fucking doused in it so it would cut right through to your core and saturate your organs and flow through your veins. We had stars spilling out of our eyes, sicking up disco balls, shiting miracles. It was EVERYTHING. WE WERE EVERYTHING.

We held each others’ hands through the struggle of faking a mediocre weekend spent pottering and going to the gym. As if any of us would stoop so low. We were IT. We were SHINING. The necessity of maintaining a cover for the world of magic we had discovered, the fairytale portal we could conjure up was a fucking inconvenience, but it had to be done, so we did. We suffered through. We did whatever we had to to propel the wheel through the days and towards the next 55 hours of heaven.

And yet, all of this was infected by misguided parental interference of managing young expectations.

One of the biggest barriers to writing is that I’m always trying to make it fit a mould. I try to be a magazine writer, or a newspaper writer, or a 2010s young experimental London writer, or a copywriter, or a charity writer. And so I never get to discover what it is that I actually write. What kind of writer am I? I have no idea.

The society I live in judges writing so early on; it’s one of the first skills we’re graded on at school, our first experience of critique and criticism. There is so much pressure to write right. Drawing the letters, joining them up, trying to make them appealing to the reader so you can persuade them to stay engaged.

And there's more prerequisites before one is allowed to unleash themselves into the world of words. You must read at least one million books to learn flow, content, and form…and no of course you can’t share something with imperfect grammar and punctation, don’t be ridiculous! You’ll be laughed out of here, the shame following you for life.

In the end it becomes easier to fit into someone else’s box, where it’s safe, where you’re merely responsible for mirroring their style, writing about their chosen subject, and don’t have to risk exposing yourself. It becomes simpler to learn about structure and commas and correct others’ writings. Not only does it keep me safe, it gives me such power! Such superiority! Fuck the suffering and the pain of writing something and then reading it aloud to the people I’m convinced will definitely get it, because I feel they definitely get me, only to see blank and awkward faces stare back at me, their mouths sounding out opinions they think will distract from their loss.

I wanted to be a good writer and it sent me in every direction but the one I wanted to go in. Now I just want to write. From my heart, from my soul, about the important things, the ones I choose.

I am for ever making lists of how to become a writer. I have been convinced for a long time that there is a formula, a recipe to becoming a “good writer” that I will crack and that if I could just follow the steps then it’ll happen. But maybe there are no steps. Maybe everyone was right. Maybe I just need to write. Or maybe I am a writer of lists, of plans and steps which I never follow because that wasn’t the real point.

And what if my vocabulary isn’t beautifully varied? Who actually wants to read something that requires the help of a dictionary…or is it a thesaurus? Who even has one of those these days? More of us should…or I should…but I don’t…and now the synonym function on my Word programme has disappeared, and so here we are. Boring words, samey words, all the words everyone knows, repeated over and over, making sense.

I remember feeling like there was a static amount of books, like it was possible to read them all if only I really, really tried, and I was unquestioningly certain that some people had achieved this. The people who had really studied literature and dedicated themselves to reading, the real people writers, not wannabes like me.

Already my brain is scanning the possible publishing options for this thing. Maybe I can use it to resurrect a forgotten blog or a neglected social media page…I can’t remember the point of writing when it’s not for likes, for reactions, for feedback…and this is how I got into this mess in the first place.

How do I find value in my work? How do I resist the multiple routes to quick external validation and instead believe these words exist even when they’ve only had one reader? Is it really real if no one has read it? I never believe you when you say it’s good anyway…what does that even mean? A* - excellent work. What does that mean? What do you feel? Maybe a B+ is better; “good, and here are some opinions”…although I’ve hated every friend who dared share any kind of constructive feedback. So nothing good comes from sharing, and nothing real comes from hiding. What the fuck am I doing.