Tag Archives: lifeislife

Hurry, don’t be late, I can hardly wait, I said to myself when we’re old

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Pow, pow, pow! These are meant to be fireworks and they once were. Bang, bang, bang! A spectacular entrance for the drugged and inebriated. A beautiful girl on each arm. A kiss on both cheeks. Forceful hands down my boxers. A handsome young guy who is the shit of the whole world. Suck my dick  because you want to. A showman, a gigolo, a fucking dickhead. I am desirable. I do no fucking wrong.  I ask the two girls if they have a brother that I can shag. Say yes and make me happy. Everything I ever wanted… high… so bloody high… soaring… looking down… eagle of the dance floor… hawk of wonder and disappointment. Pow, pow, pow!.. shattered dreams… shattered lives. Thirty years bye bye. Lonely, penniless, fucking old, a closed roller shutter and a damp empty building. Is this the right place? A shit full of memories. Cry for me and I’ll join you.

One of the most important things I’ve learned is to ignore what people say

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Bleak January. A place that is appropriately called a Winter Garden. Full of absent people. I come and sit here everyday while I drink my takeaway coffee. I always take the lid off because drinking it through that tiny slot takes forever and makes coffee dribble down my chin.

‘Red socks’, sits on the bench opposite and looks handsome from a distance. But why is he wearing red socks? He’s deep in conversation with a Chinese girl who looks bored and takes sips from a bottle of Pepsi Max Lime that will be  warm by the time she finishes it. I wonder what he’s saying to make her look so listless. Occasionally she looks over as if to say, “please swap places with me.”

Between us, a mouse keeps running between flower beds. Backwards and forwards it goes and nobody takes any notice. This is a brave mouse that likes living under exotic leaves but can’t decide which is the best. I hope that the Chinese girl might notice the mouse and scream loud enough to stop ‘‘Red Socks’ talking for a moment. But she fails to see it because she is on the verge of falling asleep.

A well-dressed black boy comes over and asks if he can sit beside me. I tell him that I don’t own the bench and make room. He introduces himself and I immediately forget his name because he is from Nigeria and it sounds strange. “This is a cool place,” he says, and I suspect that he might be trying to pick me up.

I ask him what he is doing in this country and he says he came to study. I wait for him to say that he is a wealthy Nigerian prince and that he wants to give me ten thousand pounds if I give him my bank details. Instead, he says that he is doing a thesis on his country. “What do I know about Nigeria?” I disappoint him and say that I’m the wrong person to ask because I’m half-witted. He gets up and leaves and I realise that I could have said that I thought that everyone in Nigeria was a prince who wanted to give money away to people who provided their bank details.

A young guy walks by with someone who I presume to be his girlfriend. He’s devilishly attractive and I instantly dislike her. I consider getting rid of her by being the first person to commit a murder inside this winter garden with an impatient mouse, a guy who wears red socks, the bored Chinese girl, and a Nigerian who could have been a prince but wasn’t. 

When they pass, two scruffy fellows follow. One of them is explaining about a giant palm tree that almost touches the glass roof. About how the leaves die and form protection around the trunk. I find myself looking at the tree and speculate what will happen if it grows any higher because there isn’t much room left. The other guy looks uninterested like the Chinese girl did, and then I realise that she has disappeared with ‘Red Socks’ because their bench is empty.

A lad with blue tints in his hair comes and sits beside me. I look at all the empty benches and wonder why he’s chosen to sit on the same one as me. Once again, I think that someone might be trying to pick me up. He has a bad cough, as bad as the blue streaks in his hair. He notices me looking, says “Hi,” and I think that he will be good looking once he’s got rid of the blue streaks. The mouse runs across the floor again.

The lad makes conversation and sounds like a nutter because he says that he likes to choose a person walking in the street, any person, a random person, and follow them to see what they do and where they go. He’s not a stalker, he says, and I make my excuses and say that I must be going back to work. 

Fear is like a shadow, always lurking just behind you. In the face of fear, courage is the only option.

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I’ve always made sure that I remain anonymous here. Not a clue does anybody have about me. But through that chink in the Venetian blinds, I’ve allowed somebody in who knows me. It’s embarrassing, but I suppose I intended it to happen. If they read this, I hope they realise that they were the right person, the kindest person, but now I fear that they won’t like me.

How can someone who says he is Polish be called Levi?

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Image: Darkness Drops

How can someone who says he is Polish be called Levi? What’s more you have more of a Yorkshire accent than I do. Yet you tell everyone that you are from Poland. The fact that you say it all the time suggests that you are probably lying, or at least living in some fantasyland. 

When I first met you, you bounced. It was like you jumped from a distant place and landed right into my path. That boundless energy makes you bounce. Never standing still, jumping from one person to the next, and you tell each one that you’re Polish when you’re clearly not.

Last night I came across a chubby guy, early twenties, who had a broken arm. He stepped out from a dark doorway and caught me by surprise and I nearly punched him. He looked me up and down and I knew that somewhere about his person would be a knife. 

It was a quiet backstreet, nobody around, but you bounced from nowhere. I was preparing to fight, and then you presented yourself as if it was the most natural thing to be there.

“You’re a fat pussy,” you told the lad. 

“Shut the fuck up, Levi.” 

“How did you break your arm, Szymon?”

“I broke it arm wrestling.”

“Leave my friend alone, Szymon.”

I looked at you. “Where did you come from?

“I followed you.” 

The lad called Szymon looked uneasy. Two against one, and he had a broken arm. 

“Why do you do this to me, Levi? I have never disrespected you. Why do I not disrespect you? Because you’ve never disrespected me before.”

“That’s not true Szymon. I’ve never liked you because you are a Polish cunt.” 

“You disrespect a fellow countryman?”

“I disrespect those that threaten my friends.”

Szymon looked at me. “Spierdalaj! I will let you off this time.”

Szymon slipped back into the shadows and I was left looking at you with your cheeky grin and slightly protruding ears.

“Why did you follow me?” I asked.

“Walk with me,” you said. “There is something I want to ask you.”

I tap all these notes into my iPhone / I want to read the Sick Bag Song

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It is after midnight, and I want to sit outside on the balcony.
I want to read The Sick Bag Song by Nick Cave.

It is starting to rain, like it has done all summer.

I look at the folded umbrella at the table with the two chairs propped against it.
There is an ash tray, that is really a pudding basin, overflowing with cigarette butts.
There is also a thin paint brush, an empty can of Diet Coke, and a piece of white Lego.

They say that The Sick Bag Song began its life scribbled on airline sick bags. I don’t scribble.

I tap notes into my iPhone, and people think I’m on Grindr all the time.

I open the sliding door and listen to the raindrops. I hear a girl shouting in the street below.

“Wait Laura, I can’t keep up in these shoes. You’re a fucking slag!”

My phone pings. It is a group chat.

“Hey Anthony, will you take a photo of the full moon?”

I can’t see the moon because of the rain clouds.

I go to the bathroom and run a bath.

I go back to the window and think that I’m probably in a bad mood.

I’m in a bad mood because there are many things I want.

There are lots of books I want to read. There are movies I want to watch.
I want to write a novel like The Catcher in the Rye
I want to be a recluse like J.D. Salinger.
I want to be a photographer.
I want to make the balcony into a lush garden.
I want to redecorate this crumbling apartment.
I want to be able to eat chocolate like I used to.
I want to do a lot of things.

I think about all these.

I go to take the hot bath and realise that I’ve added Oral-B 3D White Mouthwash to the water instead of bath creme.

I empty the bathwater.

I go back to the window.

Thunder rumbles.
I want to go outside and put the umbrella up.
I want to sit underneath it and read The Sick Bag Song and listen to the rain.

I tap all these notes into my iPhone. One day these notes will make a story.

It is time for bed.


Dear Daz / The one thing I can never forgive you for

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Dear Daz

I don’t know why, but I thought about you today. I was looking through a window at a green valley that was drowning in rain. It was a battle between land and sky. You always spat on the floor and never apologised, a bit like the rain. That was just you.

What are you doing now?

The last I heard you’d moved to Australia with that girl. I suppose you’re married with kids, but I struggle to understand the job you might be doing. I recall that you always did things with your hands.

Did life turn out like that for you?

I guess I’ll never know because we lost contact a long time ago.

How did we meet? You won’t remember, but I do. 

A mutual friend said I needed a night out with the lads. He warned me about you. Said I wouldn’t like you because you were brash and needed to be the centre of attention.

I did like you, and for the next five years we got on extremely well. 

Do you remember when we asked girls which of us was better looking? They always said it was me, and I said it was because I was tall and you were short, and that your nose bent slightly to the left. I said they found you loud and intimidating. A boy of the working classes. And you laughed and always told me to fuck off. 

That was the problem. I didn’t see it then, but I do now. You never liked being second best. Dare I say that you were jealous.

I remember the time I took a friend’s sister out. “Never go out with a mate’s sister,” you told me. That was good advice, but you did better. You secretly dated your best friend’s Aussie girlfriend, and the days of the young lions came to a messy end.

Let me tell you something.

You never had any reason to be envious.

I remember a rainy bank holiday and we played football. Afterwards, you invited me back to your house to dry myself and watch your Dad’s secret stash of porn movies. 

I remember sitting on your Mum’s sofa while you sat on the floor and couldn’t take your eyes off the TV screen. You took off your wet trackie bottoms and stretched out on the carpet. That aroused me more than anything else, and for the first time I realised that I was probably in love with you. I thought that you might have been in love with me too. But we were too masculine to ever say it. 

This is my fondest memory, because when I think about you now, I only remember three other events.

One.

We were walking down a dark Spanish street and you stopped and turned to me. You said nothing, looked into my eyes, and punched me in the face.

Two.

There was the time that you pushed me over a wall, and I fell backwards down a muddy slope and into a river.

Three.

When we were playing football, we both went up to head the ball. As we rose you deliberately elbowed me in the face and knocked me unconscious. I still have the indentation above my right eye to remind me.

And yet, I forgave you for those lapses because I realised that you were made to feel second best again. I guess that was my fault.

The last time I saw you was when you’d been ostracised for stealing your mate’s girlfriend.

I was in a bar with a friend and you both walked in. You nodded like I was a stranger that you’d met for the first time. You slipped by and never said a word. 

That is the one thing I can never forgive you for.

I suspect that there was a reason for ignoring me. By this time I’d told my friends that I was gay, but never told you. They were happy for me whilst also being pissed off because I could have had any girl I wanted. 

I never told you, so never knew your reaction when you found out.

Were you happy for me? Did you love me as I loved you? Did I frighten you? Had I made you feel inadequate? Were you repulsed? Did I offend something that you believed in?

I would like to think that you’re the married man with kids that I’ve already described, and that you’re living in a big house in Australia.

And yet, I also worry that things didn’t turn out as well as you expected.

I thought about you sitting alone in an empty bar in a backstreet of Sydney. And in walked a wrinkled old woman who asked you to buy her a drink. She told you that you were good looking, and you spat on the floor and said, “I used to be good looking, but my mate was better looking than me.”