You Did

We went to the house where you were staying.
There was myself, my mate, you and your mate.
We were only teens aged 16-19.

What did we know back then?

I knew next to nothing except music and planes.
We went to the shop and got our beer.
Drinking all night and watching trash horror.

Later, we all slept.

My mate with your mate, upstairs.
She had a sexy body and was pretty.
Yet she had the local attitude.

Nothing happened.

You were the big one and another local one.
I left school 18 months before.
My maths teacher said:
Don’t let me hear of you getting anyone pregnant on someone’s living room floor.

That’s exactly what I did with you.

Or so you said when we met on that dark night.
I was with one of my mates and you were with gobshite.
You told me the news.

I said get rid of it.

You said no.
That was that.
Still is.

How different it would have been if you were nice and I loved you.

I never liked the Wet Wet Wet lyrics you wrote me.
I liked The Bangles.
And wanted an alternative gal.

Not a local slapper.

Of course, none of it matters now.
Except to me.
I did everything wrong back then.

Not anymore.

I survived your brother.
I survived my strict mother.
I survived my street racing car crash.
I survived the fights.
I survived the bullies.
I survived myself.
I survived the wrong job.
I survived darkness you caused.

All for what?

To live…

Anthropophagus Means Cannibal or Man-Eater

My desire is a cannibal. It’s a tiger standing on train
tracks with the baying of the air horn begging
me away. I’m a rickety overpass and my longing is a compass
driving me toward open bodies with split apart ribcages and I want to
live inside of them. This guy and I are cannibals connected to bodies
functioning off of remorse – “no thanks, I don’t want any of your
melted ice cream,” I say as we bump knees on
his bed that’s also a couch watching X-Files
together. I’d prefer him to stop rustling his own hair and rhapsodizing
the grandeur of his self, I mean he’s no
Fox Mulder, after all. But I’m flesh and he’s flesh and the
meat of my mouth is going to drain him, and it does.
I’m an entire person who eats others to fill
my insides. I’d like to chew on the bits of his
body where decency lives, maybe on the inside?, but I’ll still settle on
the outside parts. If he ate the inside parts
of me, he’d find hidden stuff like how I’m an adult
but how, like a kid, I’ll hold onto my
old stuffed animal and cry sometimes.
It’s hard to be a lonely grown-up kid and a cannibal at the same time.
And this guy could see that with 1stbite; he’s
an emotional wendigo – but not so keen for me. I do
all the eating, and after we fall asleep on the bed-couch
in the cadaver yellow light of a late night / early AM. When I go to examine
my face upon waking, I like the way I look having fallen asleep with a wet face
and makeup still on. I stand silently at his sink while he’s asleep, in
the mirror my face is tracked with acid rain. I’m a
golden mystic of 2 AM tater tots – devouring them with
the blood of strange boys in strange homes. Hungriness is like how prophets
saw the prophecies in the smoke of poison fires. In the home of this also-cannibal’s, I
can guess the man-eating-mistakes awaiting us in future fires.
The previous past is painted on my morning cheeks, my cheeks are apples under
taunt stretched freckles. I wish the boy in the bed would
take a big bite out of them and then we could
be fortune telling flesh eaters together. But cannibals can’t also
be carcasses, and seeing beyond sight isn’t for duo man-eaters.
Before I leave, I study his sleeping body – a steak in a case – ,
the sheet is a skin shedder – a reptile molting. Shifted off his shoulder blades – they’re sharp
as spears. I could pick the meat out of my teeth with
his daggery collarbones. Maybe modern day monsters can’t sync
like phones. So, I become a blank screen leaving as
a shell having digested what I came for – or what I thought I came
for. In wakefulness, he won’t remember me. We are concomitant
beasts bleeding out these brief memories – together but apart. Lonesome miseries, never stuffed.
Cars pass, but none are mine, I shift my feet and wait for
my getaway outside the butcher shop of the boy’s apartment. The wind lifts
my skirt like the sheets that you raise up into
sails – full blown. My body, forever hungry and next meal awaiting,
looks like a mailbox full of love letters.

Wearing Red Lipstick and Skyping with the Wolf

Like the first time I had sex,
I didn’t know how to Skype until he showed me.
I thought you talked face-to-face
not groin-to-groin
but there was my clit,
pink, swollen, and on camera;
a rediscovered loss of virginity.
He told me when to take off my clothes,
how to drop them like tears to the floor, and
I’d spend 15 minutes getting ready before I’d call
so my lipstick looked extra red on camera
so when the light hit my face
you couldn’t see my fear.

That’s Just the Way It Goes…

there’s very little involvement
when it comes to writing
all you do is
sit back
drink
lose a piece of your sanity
lose a piece of your soul
fill the waste basket
with crumpled failures
while the typewriter does all the work
and sporadically,
smash the bottle against the wall
or through the window pane
when its really gotten to you.

Exploding Trousers & the Truth

‘I really don’t want to go’ she said:
I had also been invited to the
wedding reception but declined
instantly: ‘If I don’t go, she’ll
never forgive me’ she said:
I looked at her and shrugged
my shoulders and said: ‘Phone
her and tell her that you hope
it’s all going great but you
really can’t be bothered
with it all’
‘I can’t say that!’ she said
shaking her head:
‘But it’s the truth’ I said:
‘I know, but I can’t do that,
what can I say?’ she asked:
‘Okay, tell her that there has
been a sudden explosion
in my trousers and that
when you’ve stopped laughing
you’re going to have to
help me out with it and won’t
be able to attend the party’ I
suggested:
she laughed a little and then
said, ‘That’s just being silly’
‘Not being able to tell a close
friend the truth is silly’ I said
rolling a joint, grinning:
‘I better start getting ready’
she said walking away and
no doubt thinking of my
exploding trousers.

Is John Travolta Really Gay and Other Existential Questions
Nope, Just That One

Random lyrics come to me
in the bubble bath-
‘ah ah ah ah , Stayin’ Alive’
Maybe because I fancy drowning…
I ride the wave of that irony for a while and
count how many sharks I’ve killed
in my life, Fuck,
they can’t just let a lady drown in peace
I wonder how many times
‘Is John Travolta really gay’
has been googled…. I wonder….
More than shark attacks?
I simply must know. NOW.
I scream bloody murder till someone comes
to check on me in the tub
ARE YOUUU ALRIGHT!!!???
ME:  Yep. I just need you to check on
some statistics for me and I need a drink.
And could you call the pharmacy.
Thank you. You’re beautiful.

Respair

I had to go to my ex’s
to pick up some post
and turned up with
a raging hangover
and a busted and bloody
mouth from God only
knows what happened
the night before.
She told me that I need
to look after myself
and I told her it was fine
because I was going
to quit the booze when
I turned thirty* and
as she wiped away the
dried and crusty blood
from my mouth, she told
me that quitting the booze
at thirty was a good idea, but
it didn’t mean that I had to
destroy myself in the meantime.

*I didn’t

First Date

He has a way with words
And I have no sense of delayed gratification,
Which means that for the last half of our time at the bar,
I fantasized to the sound of his voice
And forgot that I had decided not to sleep with him
on the first date.

And I remember nothing
But the way he looks when he smiles
And the thought of cumming to that laugh.

Anyway, I went home with him.

Under Take Her

He painted my cheeks with rouge,
dabbed a nude shade of pink on my lips
I didn’t like the way I looked,
so fake, doll-like, a mere reflection of my former self
but he took me to his room
sat me in his reading chair, propped up,
my glasses on, my hair freshly curled,
formaldehyde running through my veins
I don’t remember how I got here,
I just remember rain and sleet and the hum of my car
but now he’s underneath me, inside me, next to me
a taking of body, of flesh
my voice silenced, my fists unclenched,
there’s no fighting back once you’re dead.