Down In Me

I want to be free to say stupid things and not be taken for stupid.

From my diction and inflection it will be clear that I’m being ironic even when I’m not. My sarcasm will flow through you unabated and my ignorance will not spoil the emotion. When I pronounce words incorrectly and tongue-trip incessantly, you will find it endearing without being patronising.

When I pause to think, not because I don’t know what to say, but because in the presence of others I often forget how to say it, you will realise that I’m thoughtfully articulating instead of internally gesticulating worries about how best to come off to you, so I can come on to you, in the hope of coming all over you, when I come over later.

Your suspicion of my inhibitions will be laid to rest once you’ve engendered every sense of the word confidence in me, because rather unfortunately, my confidence isn’t innate; it’s slow shy land turtles that poke their heads out only when it’s safe. With minds in full view and thoughts made of glass, our lives will switch on like gaudy crystal lighting. This shining combination will blind you to what I desperately need you (not) to see.

When I speak, jet-stream rainbows will shoot from my mouth, my candy-coated tongue will stimulate your salivary glands, and your blood-sugar levels will skyrocket.

I want you to be free to say stupid things and not be taken for stupid. Because stupid has got a bad rap through overuse. Girls are not stupid by virtue of being girls. Some are stupid by virtue of being borne. But this has fuck all to do with being girls; it has all the fuck to do with being us.

I don’t care.

No, really, I don’t. Stuff happens and it just flows over me and rolls away gracefully, like water off a swan’s back (shush, it’s my writing and I’ll mangle sayings as I see fit). Most of the time I just can’t fathom getting my knickers in a bunch over the trifles of daily life. Naturally, everyone has limits. Even someone as obnoxiously carefree as I am. You’ll very rarely come up against those well-camouflaged lines, though. If you should happen to, by chance, I have only one word of advice: run.

Artichoke shower gel and
Spaghetti shampoo
Organic acid grapefruit skin
With a pizza ass amble

Minty tartar exhale
Chili perspired
paste and taste
And arousal honey fingertips

FUCK OFF
I’M NOT A BREEDER
constitution mushy
I’m delicate petals
and shame

There’s a part of me that I keep hidden, that I just can’t talk about. I pride myself in being open and honest, if not with others, at least with myself. But there’s this… thing, this thing that’s been bubbling beneath my surface for I’m not sure how long - maybe for always - and I simply haven’t been able to discuss or even acknowledge it until now.

I like when she speaks in those universal tones because it makes me feel less alone, less desperate, because when I say it, well it’s just me and I say a lot of things, but when she says it, I believe her. Because she speaks with confidence, because she can see things that I can’t, because she can see that I can’t speak, because she’s proved herself only to me in ways that only she and I know.

Sometimes, in my more reckless moments, I try to negate my trust in her, to rationalise it away because of worthless questions like, if I don’t trust myself, how can I trust someone else? A ceaselessly questioning mind coupled with a high susceptibility to the judgement of strangers. The truth is that she gives me hope. It’s small and fragile, soft. A small puff of cotton wool, but it’s something.

I can’t think about it too much. There’s much that I won’t say. I’ll unravel it though, slowly. Until it disperses and I come unblocked; until it comes undone, but I, thankfully, remain whole. In the meantime, I’ll stuff some white fluff in each ear, with a view to drowning out the noise between them.

Give 1500 words and/or £9. That’s it. Oh, I can hear you now, “But Ani, I just wouldn’t know what to write.” Um, yes you would, you spend hours every day blogging inanities about your cat, don’t you? “But Ani, I don’t have nine quid just laying around!” That’s about two Starbucks Caramel Macchiatos, you spend more than that in one week, you’re not even trying. “But Ani, I’m just so busy.” Right. Since you refuse to go offline, do something relatively guilt-lessening while you’re online.

So go. Click. Do. Now. Before I spank you. I mean, thanks.

YOU’RE NOT THE ONLY ONE

Random things people have said to, about, or in front of me:

[During a business trip] “Venezuela is the arse end of the world.”

[After reading a letter I wrote] “You’re starved for love.”

[With detectable pride] “My father refused to watch baseball when they started allowing black people to play.”

[On Hilary Clinton] “Even women aren’t voting for that bitch.”

[Drunk outside the pub] “I hate you fucking Americans. I’m a nice guy, really. I fucking hate you.”

[A month or two before disappearing] “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you, support you.”

[Male colleague about female colleague] “She deserves to be violently raped.”

[Colleague, upon learning I’d been hired] “Another one?”

[Without a hint of irony] “Shopping is women’s work.”

[Stranger on the street] “You’re too pretty and young to be smoking.”

[After telling a Hitler joke] “Hahaha! Haha. Ha.” [Crickets.]

[Monumentally stupid colleague] “George Bush is a really smart man, he’s just playing to the lowest common denominator.”

[Someone I love] “I think you are as confused and bewildered as only some of us are prepared to admit.”

[My mother, upon making the shocking discovery that I have male friends] “What, like with benefits?”

[Male colleague about female colleague] “Mmmm. She’s fucking tasty.”

[Executive twat, introducing me to higher-up executive twat] “This is Ani. I’m not sure what she, uhh, does… here.”

[About a lovely man] “I wouldn’t date a white guy. Ew.”

[Genuine friend] “You’re safe now.”

“Pardon me… Pardon me. Oh, I’m sorry. I just hit you with my bags, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, watch where the fuck you’re going!”

“SORRY! Ugh!”

***

“Pardon me… Pardon me. Oh, I’m sorry. I just hit you with my bags, didn’t I?”

“No.”

“Oh. Oh, I thought I hit something…”

“I said no.”

“Oh. Um, alright then.”

“Look, you didn’t hit me, okay.”

“Oookay.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

“Fine.”

***

“Pardon me… Pardon me. Oh, I’m sorry. I just hit you with my bags, didn’t I?”

“Ow! Yes, that hurt tremendously.”

“Oh? Oh. Um, I’m really sorry.”

“How sorry?”

“Ummm…?”

“Sorry enough to go for a coffee with me?”

“Huh?”

“Coffee shop. Next stop. Down the road. You can buy me one if it will make you feel better?”

“Yeah… Yes. Yes, that would be lovely.”

***

“Pardon me… Pardon me. Oh, I’m sorry. I just hit you with my bags, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but that’s quite alright.”

I have a kind friend.

No, really, I do. I have sent him an email that says: I don’t mean to embarrass you, but you really are wonderfully kind-hearted. Everyone I know is hurt and scared (kindness towards others being out of reach at best, when you’re hurt and scared) and you were hurt and scared, maybe you still are, hurt and scared, but it’s like your insides were made to withstand terrible things. I try to be kind (I’m a good person), but it’s true that trying and being are different things. While it sounds simple, being as kind and generous as you is almost unnatural, and again, I don’t mean to embarrass you, but my immediate response to your kindness is (utterly involuntary) sexual arousal. I’m not sure what that says about me. Something kind, I hope.

“I feel that you are cool.”

“I think you are really cool, too.”

“Tell me more things about me. I like when you talk about me.”

“I feel like you are great and very very interesting.”

“In what way am I interesting?”

“In every way that matters.”

“I think you are interesting, too, but I feel you are more great than anything else.”

“I think it takes a great person to recognise that I am interesting.”

“That is what I like about you.”

“I like you, too.”

“Please vomit in my mouth now.”

“Okay.”

I know you’re scared because your cucumber breath fogs up my glasses
I’m scared, too

If only they knew how we’re really warm jelly
And crumble cookie-like under the lightest forefinger/thumb squeeze

I split open arteries, to bloodsquirt your face
Feel free to follow suit

With cheek blood like warpaint
We can catch, eat, fuck, shit, destroy and begin again
Like love beasts, with no mask

But only after we leave lit candles, apples and pennies
At the altar

You encroach on my space without so much as a nod to my consent, you intuit I’ve consent for none. Stepping into my place with a dismissive shrug, passing judgement, invading.

Speaking of which… my mother, god rest her soul, though she’s not dead - my mother used to drink coffee only on Saturday mornings, and then it was white with milk and weak and sweeter than honey. Baby’s bottle, she called it. The rest of the week, breakfast consisted of the juice of a half dozen oranges, or, if pressed for time, the pulp of one. It helps keep me regular, she would say in her roundabout way.

You inspect my soiled laundry, running your fingertips over my dusty surfaces, inhaling my nicotine air. Remarking at my overcrowding or my lack.

She’s a beautiful woman, my mother. Always has been. She was gorgeous, desperate fodder for older men in her youth, I’m living proof. And she’s gorgeous, desperate fodder for younger men in her maturity. There was a space of some years in which she was lost, though. He spoke loudly, he was a loud man. He drowned out her voice with a neverending stream of ignorant jabber. She was sick for a while, and careless. I now realise that while I was busy rebelling, my life unfolded similarly. I avoided loud men, thankfully, but drowned in quiet men just the same.

Speaking of which… you tell me not to worry, that you’re not disgusted or worse or better. You understand much of nothing yet you feel entitled to your lukewarm inspection of my desperate living. You dispense with my humanity under the pretense of assistance, infringing on my every quivering cell.

I don’t eat oranges in the morning. I drink strong, bitter coffee. If I were as beautiful as she, I’d be insufferable. The similarities are clear, ancient talk of apples true, but I saw what she couldn’t, a marked and crucial difference, and speaking of which… of that I never speak.