Favourite Colour: gold because it’s the colour of invaluableness (and also the colour I died my hair).

Favourite Animal: the lion because I think I’ve become one.

Favourite listen: Banks ‘Goddess’, for singing the words I forgot to say and for understanding me. (Close runners up: Lana Del Rey ‘Ultraviolence’ and Rumer ‘Into Colour’ for the same reasons).

Favourite read: ‘The Enneagram Test’ because disbelieving the theory was just as insightful as believing in it.

Favourite watch: ‘Some Girls’ because somehow that comedic teenage quartet tell me something profound about life, love and friendship.

Favourite person: women in general,  because the English lexicon is not broad enough to define them.

Favourite word combination: inherent incongruity, because all things contain oppositions and nothing is one thing alone.

Favourite time of day: 11:59pm when I lay my head to rest and pat myself on the back for making it through another day.

Worst moment: forgotten already (it’s the only way).

Favourite moment: dancing on stage with M.I.A. because my heart left earth.

Worst discovery: No limit to pain.

Best discovery: No limit to happiness. And we’re all different and that’s beautiful.

A sunflower I grew this spring

So many ghosts parading up and down the streets of my life. Everywhere I walk the shadow of a better day looms. These poltergeist that once were living pieces of my heart, DNA and memory. They slink past so fast that I might not realise I ever knew them.

The lightning in my eyes when I’m angry is striking. I’m beautiful.

My puffy red nose after I’ve finished crying is endearing. I’m beautiful.

The bags beneath my eyes when I’m overworked are amazing. I’m beautiful.

The way I stutter when I’m lost for words is compelling. I’m beautiful.

That spot that reappears whenever I’m stressed is captivating. I’m beautiful.

The roughness in my throat when I’ve just woken up is heavenly. I’m beautiful.

That tooth that overlaps the others on my bottom jaw is perfect. I’m beautiful.

The awkward expression I wear when I’m embarrassed is unparalleled. I’m beautiful.

The way I lose my rag at that time of the month is sensational. I’m beautiful.

The fact that I fuck up is encouraging and inspiring. I’m beautiful.

I look back and I laugh.

Every particular is perfect material for a comedy. But why wasn’t the character trapped in the comedy laughing at the time? Because the audience’s comedy is the character’s tragedy. And whilst she screams for release we sit and we laugh.

This character turned human again sits and she laughs, retrospectively. Ha ha.

schadenfreude – pleasure derived from the misfortune of others.

I can’t stop you from making me happy. I can’t stop you from making me sad. You add, you subtract. I am the same and yet more and less as you do and don’t, give and withdraw, say yes and say no.

I have no power but in feigning indifference, whilst being made different by you every day.

For anyone that’s ever lost their Queen.

Dear Lord,

Have you seen her?

That woman you took those 10 Christmases ago.

Have you seen her?

I think of her as time itself. She is the seconds of every day. She is the centuries that pass.

Have you seen her? Our Queen.

I hear her dancing through our lives. A Bob Marley beat. A gentle sway.

Have you seen her? That Goddess.

I feel her kissing every endeavour with courage and wisdom. Her breath is delicious like eternal Eden.

Have you seen her? Mummy.

I know her more than I know myself as she makes me more of who I am with every memory.

Have you seen her? ‘My name is Pat.’

I want to see her.

Lord, how I want to see her again.

You are the most special person in the world. Live it. As long as you have you, you will always have enough. No matter what happens, keep going because life’s highs and lows come and they go. Life never stops moving and neither should you. You are strong and adaptable and capable of adjusting to every change. You have no comparison on this earth. There is no one that will ever live that will exceed you in beauty – the only person that needs to truly understand that is you. Never let the words ‘what is wrong with me?’ become a familiar phrase. You’re perfect. Accept yourself and own your failings – they are just as important as your successes. Know that you’re just as brilliant when you’re down as when you’re standing. Believe believe believe in yourself. Trust your instinct. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Don’t be afraid to say yes and be even less afraid to say, actually no. Follow what you want. Don’t waste yourself where you’re not wanted. Never love anyone more than you love yourself. Endeavour to know yourself inside out but recognise that the unknowable is characteristic of who you are. Find your anchor in yourself – be unmovable but also moveable as life dictates. Never resist change – ride it. Never compete with anyone; wish every other human well. There’s no such thing as can’t; you will. Don’t try to be; you are. Question those that question you. When your heart is broken, celebrate the fact that it will heal. Do whatever you can and don’t worry when you can do nothing. Try new things. Don’t be fazed by pain. Walk boldly into the future. Don’t seek answers to the unanswerable. Cry. Weep and wail. Always conclude with laughter. When you have to try too hard at something, try something else. Never surrender your opinions, truths and concerns. Embrace duality, antithesis and inherent incongruity. Don’t be pressurised. Love the moment. Don’t take for granted how close you are to death. Recognise that you are powerfully powerless. Remember that you always have the ability to choose. Take regular moments of relief. With every hello, be prepared to say goodbye. Don’t give into anxiety as if the instability of life is a surprise to you. Have the confidence to allow the people around you to be nervous, inept and confused. Let your clarity be the reality that you’re breathing. Seek nothing more than the truth that your heart is still pumping.

Never give up.

Tried to listen to Lana Del Rey yesterday. Almost died. So I try again this morning like someone that is addicted to anguish or someone that believes she can overcome pain by running
directly at it. I reach into the airing cupboard to replenish the toilet paper. I pick up three rolls instead of one. Someone is talking and I can’t decipher a word through the refrain: ‘black beauty’. Is the music even on yet? No. Not yet, and yet it’s on repeat…somewhere. I used to disappear from sadness here. And now the memory of disappearing from sadness makes me sad. Crying. Press pause. Fight through the pain. Press play. You love this. You must love this. You live for this. You were born to die.

The prospect of going to my GP surgery to change pills is so exhilarating, especially in contrast to going in to work tomorrow. How cheap the world’s pleasures have become. The subconscious thought that I can tame and master my female body with a man-made hormonal strategy is irresistible. The one thing that I can control at present. When my world is falling apart and crumbling like a faulty batch of biscuits, I look to my womb to play my game. Play my game, bitch. Play that game, ’cause they won’t, he won’t, heart won’t, destiny, desire…won’t.

When I’m sleeping you…
Kiss me on my eyes
Watch me breathe
Follow my heart beating
Think about our future
Remember the day we met
Forgive me all my wrongs
Hope this will last forever
Never want to let me go
Shed a tear because you’re so happy
Promise to make me happy too

When I’m sleeping I…
Dream you do all of these things

Just let me die. Let me be the ethereal creature that I’m suited to being. An angel with a sword in hand cutting my way through spiritual dimensions. I am out of place on this earth – capable of enduring too much hardship. I should be amongst the stars where my brightness, my consistency, my immortality, belong.

(artwork courtesy of my nephew)

When you’re low, it breaks me.

I wish it was me. I wish it wasn’t you.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know how to feel. What do you feel?

Why can’t I make it better?

Why can’t I make you happy?

The last thing I want to do in the world is draw back from love, to trick myself into believing it’s not there, to put it on hold, to delay it’s fulfilment.

It’s the worst song I could sing and yet also my greatest hit: Goodbye.

Bonus tracks: Another lifetime, Till we meet again (by Love and Loss)

Why are we always losing? The reverse of that question is why are we always gaining things worth losing? The impoverished person asks us that question through hungry eyes, desperate for a little something worth losing.

Don’t tell me ‘one day’. 

Don’t applaud me for doing work that goes against my nature. I’ve been forced into a hole so don’t congratulate me for making my home down here. For warming myself and making it beautiful. I don’t do it because I want to, I do it because I was left with no choice. Yes, come in. See how much I’ve changed – how altered the colour of my desire is. How I’ve had to contort my body into a shape that fits this small, plain burrow. I don’t remember at all my flayed arms and wild movements when I used to run free in my own nature. This is for the best.

Your hair: a hat I’ve given to my brother

Your kiss: a mug drying on the dish rack

Your eyes: a DVD I watch without crying

Your hands: a chest of drawers I’ve disassembled to make more space in my room

Your laugh: a joke I’ve told so many times I can’t remember who said it

Your feet: just another route on google maps

Your heart: a box of letters and cards somewhere under my bed

Dear Santa,

For Christmas, what I wish for most is:

The mummy I lost

The daddy I’ve never had

At least one of the boys I’ve loved

No more sickness

A happy Christmas

Thank you. Love c x

ps. Santa, I’ve lived without these things for a long time so if you find someone that needs them more I won’t mind.

I’ve got a thousand people around me to love me. Every crowd I walk through, there’s some wandering eye running his desire over my cheek wishing he could touch my mouth and then my soul and make me crave him as much as he craves me.

Craves me. Yet, I don’t want them. Because when you fall in love with one you live in that house, no matter how dusted in asbestos it may be, and nothing is more perfect.

Perfect. A phenomenal woman deserves a phenomenal man, but she rarely secures one because the phenomenal are always looking for those that are deficient to share with. So her heart is inclined to the down and out, the abusive, the careless and the uncommitted.

Uncommitted. She knows that life is bleak but she hopes beyond all hope that it doesn’t have to be and turns a blind eye to every blemish.

What does a woman do when she’s too tired to turn up the corners of her mouth? She turns them up again. Because her smile is all she has to remind her of her strength, of her courage, of her hunger for life.

Life. It eats her, yet she eats it, mouthful by bitter mouthful, swallowing hard and promising herself that she won’t die till she’s digested every wretched morsel.

Wretched morsel. She cannot forget, though she always tries to – her pain, her brokenness, her scars, her inner tears. She wears them like tattoos on her organs where men and women cannot tell that she is living phenomenally everyday – beyond what should be doable.

Doable. She does; she cries in the toilet. She does; she weeps at the bus stop. She does; any excuse to run an errand far from ignorant eyes so that she can release her stifled cries like vomit behind the tree of the nearest park.

…

The breath of our breathing is the soundtrack to our evening. He’s fingering the pages of my life, words and unwritten things mingling in an atmosphere of perspiration and possibilities. Maybe he’ll melt right in front of me; maybe I’ll melt into his-tory…or maybe we’ll melt together, immortalised like molten rock into a volcanic island stranded in a place of memory. Don’t speak. Don’t use my name. The waters ebbing as the moon wills them outside our window have no name. That’s what makes them both real and ethereal. And our condensation, running down your spine like a river builds momentum as it rushes to the ocean that only appears in our imagination. Our imaginations are identical twins wrestling their way to an inevitable ending, somewhere, someday. The ending is the beginning. You are just as real as the thought of heaven, as clear as a vision of God, as near to me as death.