solidarity.

Dark. The scene is dimmer then I once remember.

Carry Gold.  You'll require the glitz to entice them, to entertain and enlighten.

To liven.

My hair's natural curl has returned, and it's sheen alone has been the only light shed on home.

The air here, heavy with familiar scenario, hot with the sting of disaffected youth,

They assimilate their weight in goods, in jewels.

Their iron stomaches, their lead intestines fear nothing of the sort.

The masquerade of modern day,

Consumption seems the only way for my precious darlings,

their feeble minds and evaporating personalities,

those I hate to love, hence, love to hate.

king & queen.

the poorly timed delivery. 

the scottish snow, nervously gazing at the window 

a limpid picture, our television screen.

the bedrooms view, for a king & his queen.

for, what a vision it was,

powder drifting in time with the melody, 

cascading to coat the earth, 

purity.

wrought with contradiction

we're frozen.

possessing a heat to melt the ice, 

these divine minutes,

a moment 

to write home about.

in the thick of the sin,

foreign skin touching the born and bread,

breaths placed accordingly.

we breed the ruins. the death of a monarchy,

the end of an era.

at least the world appears pretty as we lie.

eyes to our sky, watching it,

all fall down.

a girl can DREAM.

a girl can dream.

she slept through all alarms, all signs of warning.

she awoke in 1940, when a woman's strife was glamorized.

when women were forced to fight.

she'll stay situated between the sheets,  she'll take this one laying down.

for her severed limbs can't hold her up,

the beast has harrowed her zeal,

her will to persevere.

the narrative of a tragedy, Oh who will save the heroin?

the whore, this bitter burden with breasts,

glowing and thin.

her body looks alive, though her pale heart claims otherwise. 

IT KILLS.

sinners.

his streets were murky, 

dense with gaunt men, 

from each of his pores, over-stimulus bled.

each woman, a harsh exaggeration of the figure eight.

each laugh, heightened to a pitch inaudible

to the Mothers and their daughters,

though, they saw all.

he swallowed them whole, saw them raw in flesh,

he beckoned, they obliged, without question.

he shuddered, and a dozen more alike fell from the sky.

a local screamed " THE CITY OF SIN", 

their full, fat bellies bounced, 

as they cheered at this statement.

He created the wrath of a beast,

sweet with sugar coating and a sticky center.

With empty pockets, empty hearts, 

from which he sought all,

they boarded the train to cleanse their souls.

Apologized to their wives and daughters, 

and cried like newborns, stripped bare.

RUN.

Grimace.  The child can't be older then five, but you feel his chilling glare.

Your bones buckle beneath you, one leg at a time.

The slow climb, how dare you.

The last of the month, the boy is masked, the girl is prepared for marriage.

Surreal, though you're in costume.  Clad in cotton.

Flush, you begin to tear.  Fight it. 

Fight it.

You're disguised, the little ones stare through your shroud of secrecy.

They see how your heavy heart beats irregularly.

Only, if you had a hand to hold. You're ashamed for trying to kid them.

Before you can tear your clothing off, time stops,

the children have gone.

You stand alone in the darkest depths of the park.

Feral in fur, drooling and snorting.

Intoxicated by the night air, the stranger with orange skin in underwear.

You cower in fear, the hollow hole of conversation, the repetition.

Hidden,

There is no rationalizing your current state of affairs.

You have made the body and the mind separate entities, 

a conflict of interest.

Scratching at intangible boundaries, trying to break free.

The innocent see this, 

though the others ignore.

END.

COOLGUYS.

"you know what I want babe?

cool guys like you outta my life"

AT WAR.

I am a sap.

Three recognizable characters grazed the screen for a mere 36 seconds.

wet, soaking wet.

There is no rain in my Scotland.

WAR, missing warmth.  

Summer stings, his hot breath .

The film finished, the theater roared, 

unaware, unaccompanied.

I hold my own hand, silently.

I am a sap.

The night licks my hot cheeks, I brake the bottle on the castle walls.

I walk along side her volcano, I profess my love, 

wasted on rocks, on hills and meadows.

I am gothic, numb as black lips. black tongue.

I want to mirror her, the undying, undeniable charm.

she is strong.

Instead, I embarrass myself.

I am a sap.

I spit in the sink of a strangers pale blue bathroom.

I watch the violinist with hunger, his socks match his shirt.

I count eyelashes, prominent and beautiful, though his words don't resonate.

A lover kisses his mouth, I am quietly enraged.

I steal cigarettes, I reapply lipstick repeatedly.

I prowl and prance, I ask to see his bedroom.

I fall asleep next to a man whose name I don't remember.

He holds me, we freeze, 

the embrace, lulling.

I am a sap.

I wake, 

in sheets I've never seen.

 lights on, bra off.

I piss, I eat a croissant. I use his ex's lipgloss.

I take pictures of his typewriter.  

Ten minutes spent trying to open the door to the main road,

his neighbor finds me, drunk, on God's day.

bemused, disoriented, I can't find home.

Daylight casts a hideous shadow.

so, I sleep until it's dark again.

I am a sap.

with no method to mayhem.

this is all I know 

of war,

ME VERUS ME VERUS ME VERUS ME.

coexistence.

left.

there was no sun to set.   the light dissipated, simultaneously, the city glowed.

a group of spanish men observed us like birds in a sanctuary,

flapping our wings softly, making tiny noises with our throats.

we'd reached a peak.

upon flat moss and rabbit holes I wished I could crawl inside, we sighed.

for, this is a finer moment in life.

After, while guzzling gin beside a toilet,

the bleakest of black tiled walls,

I secretly wished these moments were permanent, 

not a capsule of time.

that she would stay, keep me feel safe.

ease the transition.

Sunday, I woke up with that daunting ache,

as though I'd slept with a man I loved,

but knew, it was 

over.

he was 

gone.

 left to fend, 

with my only friend, my only lover,

the city which breaths me,

keeps me warm at night.   

explode.

'i am all for putting new wine into old bottles, especially if the pressure of the new wine makes the old bottles explode'

Angela Carter, Notes.

- - - - - - -

dismiss.

divulge.

delude.

doubt..

deny.

destroy.

400 blows keen, crawling.

wish came true, now you've seen,

all but the

death of me.

MURMUR.

wake, drown in drink, sleep, wake, drown in drink, sleep, wake.

the cycle consumes.

the weekends here are kept wet, 

in body, in soul, in mind.

we hitched a ride to the oldest pub in Edinburgh to sit coy in boxcar

quaff ale,

gobble ostrich.

refusal brings out the beast in us, lungs tight, clandestine.

a melody sneaks quaintly into our corner.

violins, fiddles, tam-tam's, the traditional bagpipe, a tin whistle.  

20 deep, locals have assembled to jam.

to romp,  to tap their heels. 

we watch, we steal, we run.  leaving the 'piobaireachd' behind.

transformed into mountaineers, we climb twin peaks.

the rain pours, Ring around the Rosie, we all fall down.   mud cakes between lacerations.

steep slope, stone steps carved in 1361.

hands held tight.  carrying the weight of the world, we totter until we're upright.

frogs squirm from pavement to grass, wishing us well.

dive into a dive bar full of 15 year olds in poor fashion playing bingo.

He's lost control again. On the floor, again.  We gulp as quick as our throats allow.

screaming, scolded.

sip the smoke, grasping the night air, again, we're out.

We galavant to an old movie house.

Intimacy surrounds.  One man down, and it's couples therapy.  We speak of failure, of loss, of interest,

of socialism.  Tarantino looks on. 

Two brutes appear in the form of women to ruin the fun.  I'm silenced, sensing tension.  He abandons me, once again reminded why I keep so cold.

I duck away, hide my face in shame, I cry.

In the water, I am beautiful.  I am honest. I am raw.

Bare, introduced to a former self. I close my eyes.

Where have I been?

just fine.

today, I wrote a letter,
the first of many.  
It took me a single try to convey fullness,
frugality of ink,
celibacy for the greater good, 
a higher power
idle is love.

93 days, 
count them on your fingers
your toes.

Sometimes FOREVER would be too SOON

though, tomorrow would do.

NEW LOVES.

we slide down cobblestone streets, 

damp, drunk

she prods her fingers between my stitches.

I coo. I clamber. I fumble. I flounder. 

a hole in the wall Jazz Bar, hidden beneath an underpass.

we scamper to purchase liquid courage,

though we've had out fill hours before.

She screams at the man with the metal violin,

a buoyant tune reverberates, 

we bounce.

light as a feather, scared stiff as a board.

I fall in the stall and sneak up the steps,

feeling quite like 16 again.

Olly-Olly-Oxen-Free,

I am completely alone in this city.

READINGS.

Included:

The Gothic; cities in literature, urban representation, literary theory, late twentieth/twenty-first century genre fiction (sci-fi & horror) queer theory, object-relations psychoanalysis, vampire fiction post-1980, literature/biotechnology, late-Victorian prison autobiographies by women convicts, & The films of David Lynch

Sure,

Time to soak in all the culture that is humanly possible.

Forgot how it feels to live.

there.

you are there. 

here, I sleep through days & dread night.

I finally saw city in light.

volcanic rock coats pale sky, bricks, bread and a baron.

isolation, the black block screams.

1660, dark ale & cold meat.

the city breeds life, 

hollow to me.

he's 15, he spits, he holds his member.

he's 18, an avid, angry drummer.

he's 25, the most beautiful man I've ever seen.

wink, nudge, nod, nude.

he's glowing, he breeds,

hollow to me.

distraction, distraction, distraction

less to say.

the curtains draw clean to a close, a gash is stitched pristine

the light is best in the studio, 

in the morning.

up all hours, heart stares back literally.

with only time to waste, wasting precious time

coming,

to the end of an era 

greet the deceased,

with nothing sentimental,

in conjunction, we'll never be complete.

fuck, I.

a life.

"Am I dreaming?"

"No, you're awake now"

"You'd left, left me, left our city. You took a train to Tokyo"

"I don't plan to go, haven't thought much about Tokyo.  Haven't thought much about anyone, anywhere, for that matter"

"Oh"

I am empty. I am listless.

an emphatic denial.

You'll heal, 

They'll be no need for me to lick your wounds.  

They'll be no need for me to dream a life.

The equivalent to fools gold.

and, left the fool,

I'd wait for you in every city.

You'll never show, You'll never shine.

You'll find another to collect the goods I waited years to savour.

Languid in my lowliness.

I am empty. I am listless.

manifest

the fear instills itself.  

some mornings I make toast and watch the glowing box glow.  

some days I stare at the ground, the ceiling, the sink.

time passes with nothing on it's mind.  

people forget I live and breathe.

I forget to live, to breathe.

I am a room, only an object.

I am, objectively, alive.

impartial to the hour, a loss of significant flavor.

I am sexless, loveless, I burn cold.

I watch our plants grow, through unaware of their progression.

their height.

What you see is my reflection,

the manifestation of a woman.