Inhaling anaesthetic
Let’s have no more talk of death
The doctor said
And in my head
I inhabit
The palace of the pale people
Egos clash and swords flash
I flinch in the spotlight
Exuding a brittle facade
Oh, how well I know myself
And the needle slips
Smoothly into that vein
Here I am again. Summer is over and time marches on. I have ‘come of age ‘ according to biblical standards. And yet again I have pressed the pause button and delayed a part of my life. I cannot afford to meet my share of the funding for my post-grad UEA course. I do not have the strength to commute from Cambridge to Norwich (that’s only an hour’s journey btw which tells you something about my physical and mental stamina atm. Off outside to shoot myself.) I have deferred for a year. I have let a whole multitude of people down. They don’t even try to hide their disappointment. Lowered eyelids and downturned mouths greet me when I tell them the tragic news. Giving me an overwhelming urge to slap the faces off them.
On the bright side the NHS have finally found a psychiatrist who specialises in EDs and childhood trauma to take on my case. She is highly renowned in her field. Ooh, aren’t I special. (*Rollseyes*)
This season’s
Supermodels on the march
The catwalk is their battlefield
Pursued by the paperazi
Prey and predators
Haunting and haunted
Butterflies gathering
Pouting at the camera
Plastered over the pages
Of fashion magazines
Bug-eyed and brazen,
They embed themselves
In my mind
I struggle to evict them
From my thoughts
We capture them in profile
Against the purity
Of a snow-white background
They make love to the media
Sauntering, soulful
Plastic dolls, manufactured
In their image
Worshipped liked Goddesses
Fragile and frigid
Their implosion
Coincides with my own.
This site makes me laugh. Yes, there are a few gems on there but it’s about as ‘deviant’ as aftenoon tea (and don’t mean opium tea).
Pseudo-Marxists make me laugh.
A’level results make me laugh.
Everything makes me laugh nowadays. And yes, that includes you, God. And the species you were idiotic enough to create: humanity.
The summer savages me
And I await September
And something of much
Magnitutde
Gathers around me
Transfixed by explosions
From the other side
Of the world
Screaming within
Scrawled across the skin
And I feel
The breath of a living God
Like an abandoned city
I crumble, saturated
With fresh blood
I am embraced, then eradicated
Because of recent world events my life has seemed unworthy of recording. On that infamous Thursday (of the London bombings) I telephoned an old boyfriend who is doing post-doctoral research at KCL. He uses London transport a lot and I was concerned about him. ‘There are seven million people in London,’ he responded impatiently. ‘What were the chances of my being caught up in those events.’
‘Oh, screw you then,’ I said and slammed the telephone down.
He rang later to apologise. So that’s what you get for being concerned about people. I won’t bother in future. Misanthropism has its advantages.
An ancient Chinese curse keeps whirling around in my head: ‘May you live in interesting times.’ I first encountered it in Susan Fromberg Schaeffer’s Anya, a novel I read over and over again as a teenager. I found myself wondering on that day whether the internet is a blessing or a curse in times like these (or in any times for that matter) 2-D people I have never met (and I hope I never shall) queuing up to associate themselves with the tragedy. On every forum I visited the same thing was occurring…almost attention seeking really. Competing with one another for sympathy.
Remember, we were all little girls once.
And perhaps we still are….
So Sick of Drowning 