Death

I want to move to the country, deep in the mountains and live in a cottage there, and not worry about people anymore. I want to find the one I will give myself to completely, and lie in their arms and softly sleep and dream of sheep.

Under the mountain, capped with snow, I would walk with such gigantic steps; listening intently to the wind as its song wanders down from the valley.

I wish it was nineteen seventy-two again. I want to wear my hair long and not be so fat, I want to wear scarfs and walk my dogs and press flowers. I yearn to be alone. Kissing the sunset goodnight, I would read, and listen to music, and not have a telephone. I want to write my poems and not worry about anyone reading them.

I wish Samuel Beckett were still alive. I want to hold his hand and have him tell me it will all be alright. I would only ever listen to that sentence if he told it to me. Which he does. I masturbate and wait for Godot, Molloy, Malone, and the rest. One day I will go to Paris and lie down on his grave, and stroke the stone with my grotesque fingers and press my lips against the cold. I cannot thank him enough.

I want to save everyone from the eternal chilly black; I want everyone here with me, on some beautiful enchanted isle. I miss that beautiful girl, whom I loved. I really did give her everything, and now I just do not know where to put my penis, or my heart. All the holes seem the same these days, but I still open my chest and invite them inside. I want everyone with me, and I want to protect them all from the pain. All pain. I want it to be gone. Why can't we all stay here in eternal embrace? You cannot hug the bones. You can't cuddle a corpse. I don't want my mummy to have to go into that horrid earth and lie alone forever. She doesn't deserve that. No one deserves that - not after all we've been through. The birth was hard enough, and then the society - that brute. I don't want my bunny to go into that awful hole and not climb out. I want to stop it all, and not ever have to say that cruel, horrible farewell. I will have to write some words someday, that cannot bring back my departed friends, but will bring smiles and tears in equal measure.

Things have changed so much in this house. It feels much darker, more slow, and altogether more ethereal. I can just drift through the walls and trip over memories, cascading down the stairs and crashing over the carpet, onto my shoes. I can't help but feel the water around my ankles. I'm drowning in the past, gasping for air and grabbing for a raft.

Beginnings

"It was about four in the morning in the height of summer, and the birds were singing beautifully. I had been staring into the mirror for at least twenty minutes. The sunlight bled into the room behind me and the bathroom light cast its judgement. I think my staring might be the result of severe narcissism. I see myself and I think I’d probably fuck me. Probably. It’s only when you look closer that you see the ugly humanity of it all. You see things in yourself and you realise you’ve criticised other people for less, but somehow it’s okay because it’s you. My face was gruesome. So purple and tan and tired. I looked at that beard which had appeared from nowhere. I guess I just stopped shaving somewhere down the line. I looked at all the individual hairs, peeling away from the flesh, trying to escape; they weren’t even the same colour. That’s me all over, no consistency. Lower than that my neck, and all those bruises from the love I made several hours ago. I can’t stand to make love prettily, and I never have. Sex is ugly, and unclean, and not remotely pretty. I suppose that’s why I like it so much. My eyes looked so bored– a dark brown, but not all that intense. They always seemed so much richer when I was younger, and in my mind’s eye they are a deep chocolate. The reality is harsh, and different – they’re more like sandalwood. Even my eyes were pale. The hair, the roof of the soul, was what made me what I am. It was never perfect, and it was never what I wanted. That quiff, borrowed from a thousand movies and pop singers, flopped limply about in front of my forehead. I saw myself so clearly that morning – I saw the face of a man who didn’t know where he was, and didn’t care. I stared for so long that my face lost all meaning. It became a pale collection of forms, and grotesque features, geographical, but still organic. "

Americana

Driving through town provides the golden thrills of youth, for free, and without fear of growing too old, slowly, losing our hair, and dying irresponsibly, just for fun.

The honey coloured sky, branches silhouetted against burning summer, and rustling as we drive past, in our convertible, layers of air pouring through our mouths, and up in our eyes, holding the face steady, and kissing, pushing the hair back all through the past. You're curled on the back seat, the bottle of Jack rolling around amidst the maps and the water bottles, your famous blue raincoat, discarded, and tied to the aerial, flapping in the breeze down the long road away from here.

That old cassette mix we made has run out and the skips are beautiful, just like that soft lulling sigh coming from the engine as we head west and don't ever want to stop until we reach those soft majestic hills, in that golden valley where I spent my childhood. I'm going to take you up mountains and remove your jeans, pulling softly as you let your long hair roll across my cheeks and feel the gentle training of your sex register deeply with my most base feelings of compassion, and ridiculous denials.

When Born To Run came bursting from the stereo and licked the air with sexual guitar chords, you woke up and clasped your arms around my neck, my Ray Bans creaking slightly as your press your face against mine, and you smell of Ralph Lauren, and I smell of the city, and your soft petals drift under my shirt, the air expanding with your fingers and making me feel whole.

It won't take long before we run out of gas, and need to pick up some more cigarettes.

Windows 2

I can not look out into the black night sky and not be intrigued by the windows. I grossly misrepresent one here.

A note on the text

When I started this blog in February 2009 - I set out a manifesto of what this blog would be about.

This whole phenomenon has brought about an insidious revolution whereby know-nothing individuals can protrude a half-baked philosophy on pretty much anything they can get their sweaty hands upon into the arena of the popular conscience. I have been bombarded by erroneous, inflated, and downright boring text in my attempts to enjoy the fruits of this invention; and while it is true that there are fruits - sweet and wholesome, filled with literary juices - they are few and far between and it makes the struggle all the more frustrating.

In this, I have failed miserably. I have become what I entered this world to combat. As of late, what I have crafted here is an amateurish banquet of inanity, trivial poetry, and vulgar self-deprecation.

So I propose a new manifesto, a renewed promise. Over the next few days I am going to collect my thoughts and create a course for this to take. I wish to continue writing - but not with such disgusting lack of direction. I want to create something exciting, interesting, not just a slow collection of phrases.

There are at least three people who read this blog - which is more than enough for me to consider the possibilities of becoming famous - and with that in mind, I will need to distil what is it I think I can do with this thing, into a more alchemically potent experiment.

Monkeys

Have you ever been laid with someone, or sat with someone, and you forget you exist for a few minutes? You could be fucking, or they could be licking your neck, or touching your genitals; or you could be sat at the back of the bus like the end of The Graduate, and for a brief moment you realise that you are entirely alone. Hopelessly alone. The silence is absolutely inexorable.

Sometimes in the dark, while he grunts and pants and is beautifully in his moment, I hold him close but look over his shoulder, my eyes looking deep into the ceiling and finding nothing there, nothing in the air above me and above him, I just close my eyes and pretend I am alone, wishing with all my might that I was alone. I can't bear it. I cannot ask him to stop, because I love him, in some way, in all probability.

Sometimes he will say something, and it will be so empty of meaning that my eyes lock on his, and I smile my empty smile, and I sink within myself. I wander down the steps of my mind into the basement, in my belly, in the very darkest part, and my soul sits there in the comfy chair and plays Simon & Garfunkel records over and over. His words, like silent raindrops, fall all around my ears and I am looking out of the window into the garden next door - the children are playing - and I think about where I went wrong. Was it that I chose this one? No - they all do it.

I have no earthly hiding place from it all, so I step inside myself. I drift off and become increasingly taciturn, licking fingers when offered, and spouting out the slogans. He must think I'm shy - for I have nothing to say to him. I make jokes and they fall flat. I pretend I am someone else, and he doesn't notice. So there it goes. Drifting off into space, while I want so desperately to be engaged, to hold so dear, and to not hate deeply everyone I have cared for ever.

How can I be so cold? Do I hold people to impossibly high standards? I think I hold people to human standards. I don't even know what standards I hold them to. I realise I don't know what I want - I doubt there are very many people who do. All I know is what I don't want.

It's not really that hard to figure out what you don't want.

Sometimes I think I was just born completely out of time. I can't relate to so many people, and so I come across as a snob, or an elitist, or a misanthropist, or a pervert. Maybe I am all of those things. But how can I embrace a culture that encourages mediocrity, and demonises intelligence and free thought? Any stray thought articulated to Mr. Man - and I am lost and out of swing, desperately scratching for some sort of understanding. He doesn't understand, and so I have to explain, and when he doesn't understand the joke, I have to pretend I didn't say anything.

Human beings are strange. I can't explain what I feel like when I drift off into space while he ploughs on regardless. But I feel very close to coming to the ultimate conclusion that we are nothing more than two monkeys in a bed, in a house that we did not build, struggling desperately to find a meaning in that.

Windows

How about those days when you don't open your mouth? You can't even drag up a smile to offer the shopkeeper and you feel a gripping unease when you walk down the street - a horrible fear in your belly that someone might notice you are there. Those days are the worst. They're not so frequent lately, but they are there - every now and then.

It's longing really. It's a deep seated desire to belong somewhere, to feel needed, or useful. I most definitely am neither needed or useful. I take up space, and pay for the privilege.

It's a hard pill to swallow - I came to realise that I am probably not the victim in my failed relationships. Not that there has to be a hero. But I am probably more culpable that the others. Let's examine that for a moment. Sat on the windowsill looking out onto the warm glows of houses filled with happy families. I wonder if they are happy, and if they are, I wonder how they got that way.

Regret - that old demon - stalks the room. It's hard to believe the shit that went on here. The romance. It wasn't romance. It was close, but no cigar.

I don't think she'd have any breath left, the way she went on.

I probably deserve the nagging. There's no way I don't annoy people. Maybe it's my teeth. They're a little less than white. I don't keep myself in as good a condition as I should. Yes, that's it. Physical unattractiveness, that is why they leave. Mental unattractiveness? I am overly contrary they say. Because I do not agree with most people, that makes me contrary. I hate Twilight, and Coldplay. That makes me contrary.

Some things are just shit.

Get over it.

You need to move on, Rob.

Get over it.

I have moved onwards, always onwards - but not entirely upward. Probably downward - hurtling towards some great chasm.

It's dark down there, and there are no people.

Enough.