Down In Me

They didn’t tell me what life would be like. Their breasts spoke to me in riddles. I would stare and note their attributes: C cups with large, dark brown areolas; pendulous, creamy, pliable. Drooping fried eggs, goose skin nature and distinct self-scent. I thought these breasts were universal. The way they’re all supposed to be. I felt ashamed that mine were small, taut and pink that day. I should have retained that sense of shame.

Misty sun floating in through the spaces in the blinds, casting bright stripes on the door frame and wall and the stack of books with no bookshelf. I think you think that I don’t know what’s really going on here. I think you think that I think more of myself than I really do. I think you think that I am smarter than I really am. That I’m well-read, bred, noble. I think you think that I can do what I can’t. I think you think about me. I think I think. I think. I. Think. Too much.

Today I feel fucked. Like after sex when you’re too drunk to say no, but probably wouldn’t have said no anyway just to have a cock to crash on, a hand to hold, it’s all the same. Come on. Like you’ve never. Hurt, muscles sore, orifices splayed, but instead of the complete relaxation of release, you’re frustrated, closed up, shot dead.

Sacrifice clarity for poetry. Sacrifice poetry for sanity. Sacrifice sanity for love. Sacrifice love for a loss of loneliness.

So apparently my mind can still be attractive, even if the rest of me isn’t. There’s a thin line between passionate and psycho, which some straddle well and others piss on. Smell the hot urine running down your thighs.

The sun shines a bright, steaming light on my insecurities, highlighting my shortcomings for you all. Get me the fucking picnic basket. I was born in that ultraviolet stream and I tan like you’ve never known.

For Blogging Against Disablism 2008

What do you say to someone who thinks you ‘deserve’ what ‘happened’ to you? Because it was caused, directly or otherwise, by something you did. Because you should have known better. Because you should have seen it coming.

What do you say to someone who thinks your genetic defect is “nature’s way of thinning the herd”? Because we can’t all be beautiful. Because we can’t all be healthy. Because we can all be Nietzschean philosophers.

What about someone who thinks your psychological problems are ‘made up’? Because they can’t see or touch them. Because you should have some self-control. Because how can you prove Munchausen’s?

What about someone who thinks your child is ‘cursed’ due to your past? Because you played fast and loose with your morals. Because you were disrespectful of yourself. Because children are but mere extensions of their parents.

What do you say to someone who stares unabashedly at your prosthetic limb? Because they have never seen one up close. Because they can’t imagine a worse fate befalling anyone. Because they pity you.

Maybe you say FUCK OFF, and you carry on. Maybe you say come here, let me educate you. Maybe you don’t say anything. Maybe you don’t speak. Maybe you stew.

Maybe you start to think they’re onto something. Because you’re forced into despair. Because you’re bludgeoned into submission. Because ignorance corrodes.

What do you say?

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.

I am deathly ill from ingesting your self-referential masturbatory bullshit really if you’re going to write just fucking write and stop fucking moan worrying about whether and what they will think of you when they think of you if they think of you what they think of you when you think that only you have ever felt or known or worried or prayed or fucked or seen or acted or cried or screamed you’re delusional so stop come off your knees stop begging for forgiveness justification permission retribution validation for your writing and don’t fucking apologise for using the words whatever words however words whichever words whenever words you use when you feel like using them destroying them creating them fondling them mishandling them loving them grammatically disregarding them if they’re in your mind you thought of them gave birth to them puked them shit them expelled them exhaled them they came from somewhere but you thought of them they’re in you now and hopefully out of you soon because this this this most beautiful of fucking languages was made for you given you expressly to use to love understand to connect so fucking use it use the fuck out of it and stop worrying about who will get it and who won’t and stop worrying about who will call you names and who won’t and who thinks you’re full of shit and who sees your head up your own ass and who buys your work is art and who buys your work of art to plaster all over their bellies and who sells your ideas and who steals your ideas and who tickles your nose with their shit and who fondles your breasts with their word hands and who wants head and who wants head fuck and who wants you to stop just stop worrying about what it means to others just stop worrying stop worrying and write stop worrying and write. Stop worrying. And write.

What’s that smell? Your hands smell funny. I don’t like it. Don’t try to feed me my food. I can feed myself. Don’t touch my food! I’m not hungry anymore.

Will you carry me, please? You smell nice and you are soft. Your fingers smell like bubbles. I like to play with you and the bubbles. Can we play again? Please? I like when you look at me.

I don’t like that doll you gave me. You can have it back. It is ugly, like you. It smells like you. Take it. Neither of us like it. It’s not the one I saw on TV, the one I asked you for and you said you would bring me a lot of days ago.

Why can’t it be just me and you again? We like to sleep late, together, and drink orange juice in bed and watch cartoons. It’s better when we are alone. Let’s stay alone again, okay?

What? Why do we have to go out again? I don’t want to go. Why do I have to wear that dress? It itches! Oh, no, not the little bows in my hair again, please. I know you are making me pretty, but then we can’t play with the bubbles anymore. Well, okay, I guess. If you want to.

Ssshhh. Yes, I’ll be quiet and sit pretty, I promise. I won’t make anyone mad at us. I’ll be good. Just don’t leave me. I’ll keep my dress clean and make sure the little bows don’t come out of my hair. Just don’t leave me alone.

As a way to become more aware. Self discovery, awareness. The key to this, to everything.

Listen to me, okay? You have to listen carefully. LISTEN! I know who you are, I know what you’re on about, I know what hurts, why and how it does and for who. I know. I can’t tell you how I know but just know that I know. This pain, I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but this pain, it never relents. Never. You just have to learn to live with it, okay? I know what this sounds like. Just trust me. Learn to endure it as best you can and know how because it’s not going anywhere. It goes where you go. It sees what you see. It touches those you touch, so if I were you, I’d touch no one. It’s there, it’s here. Forever. So you just do the best that you can do and you don’t run, okay? The best that you can. That’s what they advise and that’s what I’m advising you now. There’s nowhere to run so you don’t waste energy on running, you understand me? You escape only to be brought back kicking and screaming so don’t fight. Don’t waste resources, they’re limited. What you have to do is much more simple. You just sit tight and in pain, tight and in pain. Tight. And in pain. And then one day, one day when the last thing you expect is to never sit tightly, that day… that day, as everyone says, that day you’re free.

But only if you listen to me. Listen to me and do what I tell you to do and don’t look anywhere else. Don’t trust. Nobody’s here for you. They’re all here for themselves. You just listen. To me. Do. What I tell you. Awareness. It’s key.

What’s that? LOOK OUT! Behind you!

Sometimes, it seems like the whole world is out to get me.

Leaving the office I pass a small, quiet car. As I turn my back to it, the engine switches on. It could follow me. Does it want to? That van, the one with the emergency lights flashing? It’s coming towards me. No, no. It is parked off to the side, I’m the one walking towards it. Those lights. Flashing. What could they be trying to tell me? I pass two men. One chortles in the direction of the other. I check myself because I know. These three, they’re laughing, too. They’re all laughing. My mere existence is a cruelly embarrassing joke.

Stand, just stand towards the back, out of everyone’s way. Don’t think I’m not catching you catching sight of me in the periphery. You’re staring. What are you thinking about, though? I can’t bring myself to look at you directly but I know you’re staring at me.

The bus. Finally. You know the score, stick your hand out self-consciously. Stop. Stop, motherfucker, STOP. I’ll take it very personally, if for one of those big city reasons, you leave me standing in the cold. I couldn’t take another ten minutes. I couldn’t take another second.

I reach for my notebook to jot down these meanderings. Feign productivity to take my mind off. But my notebook isn’t there, where it should be. Everything has its place. Okay, fuck it, find something else. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is out to get me. This will do, though: an old envelope and a lucky pen that normally swims at the bottom of my security blanket/canvas bag. The bag that will die for me. It’s true. The inside flap says, THIS BAG WILL DIE FOR YOU. It hasn’t let me down yet.

The fucker behind me is looking over my shoulder. I don’t know who he is, but I know he is. Self-referential hand over the envelope. Protecting my thoughts like that kid in math class protecting his exam answers from prying eyes. This isn’t for you, motherfucker. This isn’t for you. This is for anyone who can’t see me and the one or few who can.In a dull, woolen haze, everything is delayed. Better slip the envelope away before backseat fucker gets a taste for so many implications.

Hop off undetected and walk purposefully up that way, the way you know. Your way. Keep your head up, your chin up. Don’t let them see you sweat, never let them see you bleed. You’ve got a right to this life. Butch. Up. Some of the mantras I sing to soothe.

At that little road now. My little road. Remember the script? Up the pavement on the right, until about halfway, just before the first working street lamp. Then, cross to the other side, nonchalantly through the cars, up a few paces and presto. We’re home.

People. Fucking strangers on my road. Fuck. Fuck fuck. Improvise. Straight ahead. Quickened pace through the burning yellow spotlight. Everyone walks, remember? Everyone walks. Almost home free, just turn the key quietly. Don’t let them hear you coming, don’t even let them feel you breathe.

Stealthy up the landing. Retaining the element to surprise the burglars. But all’s quiet. Once inside, first things first. Is the ringer off? Not today, real world, not today. Maybe not tomorrow either, but you never know. Keep hope alive, these things turn cyclical. In cycles. I haven’t figured out the average length to each revolution, but they tell me all things come to an end, even circles.

Sometimes, it seems like the whole of myself is out to get me.

I had a thought.

It moved through quickly but I held it for an instant in a cavernous corner. It breathed. I shook life into it and then let it find its way back. I wasn’t sure where it was headed and I wanted to know. I tried to follow its wispy yellow tail as it vanished through the air. I wasn’t quick enough.

It was a bastard fleeting thought.

It might have been an original thought, too. It had all the makings of a thought that’s never been thought before, ever. Transient. Aloof. Ephemeral. In colour. It was a good thought, I think. At least it might have been, if I could have held onto it long enough to validate its sorry life.

I am sad now. Fucking thoughts.

I wait and wait and wait.

And there’s all this beauty and love and excitement and desire and rushes and flourishes and oven heat and cold sweat and fluffy soufflés and silky chocolate and creamy whips and succulent citrus. But it all perishes like so much sour grapes and curdled milk the moment you realise she can live without you and you can live without her. Because there’s plenty of hotspots in town and at each one, a faceless beauty clad in black waits to serve you.

I wait and wait and wait.

The warmest interaction I’ll have today will be with the sweet Malaysian behind the counter that asks where I hail from. I stumble and hesitate and confuse because I have no clear sense of where I’ve been. I just know I’m ravenous and I’ll settle for anything to quench this thirst right now.

I wait and wait and wait.

The longest wait today will be for him, undoubtedly. I watch the door, closely scanning (as if I need to) the arriving faces making their entitled way through the glass doors, I bide my time. The vegetables steam, the meat sizzles, the drinks chill, the silver’s gleaming in the candlelight. Everything is picture-perfect cliché, including the waiting fucking female swiveling on the barstool.

I wait and wait and wait.

God, that line is getting irritating, isn’t it? But it’s true: I wait. It’s all I can do is wait. I wait because I don’t know what else to do, I don’t know how else to be. I’ll be your courteous, energetic, enticingly inappropriate waitress for the night. You know, the one that remembers what everyone ordered.

I wait and wait and wait. 

Hello and welcome, my name is Ani (yes, one ‘N’ no ‘E’ because it’s minimal) and I’m here to serve you all smiles tonight. Can I get you a drink to start with? I’ll get you anything you want. I’ll wait on you and serve everything up for you because I’m nubile, I mean servile, I’m servile like that.

I wait and wait and wait. 

I can’t say how long I’ll be able to wait on you though, my shift ends at 1 a.m. Would you care for dessert? I do hope you’ll tip me well because I’m crumbling quicker than our most decadent apple tart.

And sometimes this cool calm and acquiescent exterior gets to be too much. And I just want to scream to holy hell in a not so good way, in a way not befitting a lady like the one I pretend with varying degrees of success. How can I write about it so coolly, even now? Even as my fingers are frozen cold and aching to strangle something in their grasp?

I am irritated and that is usually a bad sign. It means there’s anger I’m trying desperately to mask. There’s always anger just below the surface that barely ripples. Keep it contained, keep it contained dear, lest you do that which we’ll all regret. They’re waiting and waiting and what have you got for them? Nothing but coming up empty-handed and full of regurgitated, overused, unoriginal banalities time and over and once again.

I’m falling apart inside and I want to let it show. Crumble into nothingness dust in the open air because the disdainful desperation of empty forgiveness is wearing on me and wearing thin. I don’t want to give up or forgive, I simply want to give in; to break it all irreparable until we breathe nothing but toxicity because even sniffing glue can’t hold us together now. But I can’t, no. I musn’t. I wouldn’t. I absolutely couldn’t. None for me, thanks. I’m fine. I had dinner, earlier. You’re much too kind.

It wasn’t enlivening, it was deadening.

I can’t stand the view of my reflection in the mirror, in a picture, behind my eyes. I am nauseous with the sight of this rotting carcass, this hollow point shell, this royal husk. It is a covering - a cover, a layer, a barrier. An annoying, withering wallowing shroud overall.

Take this outer, it is not mine. This hooded coat, this blanket, coating, film, overlay, sheet, cover-lay, sheath, crust, this faux finish. I want a new one, a fresh one, one that doesn’t smell with the stench of a thousand men, a thousand suns, a thousand deaths. One that doesn’t show the signs of use, of misuse, of abuse, of disuse. One that doesn’t give one away without protection, one that doesn’t shout to the world anything I don’t want the world to know.

It wasn’t deadening, it was horrifying.

I’m ready to fuck it all up again. I’m ready to be hated, loathed, despised. I want to breathe in putrid sickness to the depths of my core. No more of this fucking dissipating maintaining sense decorum. I’m fucking overflowing with bilious rancour and spite. I’m filled to the brim with mounting rage. More. Harder. Faster. I want to feel the stinging thud on crawling flesh. I need to be reigned in, taught restraint as I’m restrained, otherwise I’m liable to fuck it all up again because I’m ready, I’m so fucking ready. Pretty white fucking blue. Fuck you! Fuck you. There’s no beauty to be found down in me, in me you’ll find everything you’ve ever hated, everything that’s ever made you sick with questioning wonder. I see it in you, I see me in you, I want to see the dirty cheap whore reflected in your eyes. Not as disjointed this time are we? We’re not pulling the wool over anything now because this is pure, unabashed hateful hate spewing forth and hate doesn’t dwell on poetic bullshit, does it? I want to hold the pile of malodorous nonsense in my hands again, cradle it, hold it to my fucking breast like a newborn child and let it drink dry my essence. Take it in, allow it to become part of me. Its rightful place, with its rightful owner. The one chosen to birth, to bear bare the heady aroma of such stinking fucking bullshit.