shorelines

There’s tiny indentations on my palms made by my fingernails, and tiny indentations on my bottom lip made by my teeth, and I’m wondering whether or not they’re going to be a permanent fixture. They’re the same hands and the same teeth that have gotten me into trouble a thousand times prior, even before I started hammering together discarded bits of driftwood with rusty nails and a lick of plaster and trying to convince myself it’s a house. Then the rain starts coming in and it turns out it barely passes for an umbrella. The thing is, even if you could save it, you’d have to ask yourself whether there’d be any point. It’s an inkless pen. It’s a ship full of holes and it’ll founder long before it sees the shoreline.

The thing is, I saw the weather forecast. I knew the rain would come and I knew I could have found shelter elsewhere, but I kept telling myself that what I had would do. “No”, I said. “It might be only driftwood and nails and plaster and it might not be up to much, but that doesn’t matter because it’s MINE. I made it myself, and screw you all anyway because none of you ever built a house did you”. Something like that, anyway. So don’t think I’m trying to say I don’t deserve every bit of the agony I’m feeling right now watching it weather and splinter and eventually crumble. I’m aware that I do. I deserve every ache in my stomach and every twinge of guilt and every pang of doubt that sends my heart sinking through my ribcage, because they’re all of my own making, and that’s what reckless naivety gets you. Though that doesn’t make it any easier.

I keep telling myself that it’s only my house that’s fallen apart. It’s not actually ME. But I’m lying, because if I’m not my metaphors, then I’m not much else. If I’m not quite a fallen down house, I’m on a damn rickety foundation. If I’m not quite an inkless pen, I’m still a pen that’s running out from wasting myself on words that I’m barely managing to string together. And if I’m not quite a ship full of holes, then I’m a ship with paper sails at best, and that shoreline is looking really far off.

Advertisements

I wish I was Scroobius Pip.

Spending every evening regulating my breathing, contemplating how my life came to be, pretentious shit that means nothing, but I kid myself I’m free.
I gotta give up the bottle before it gives up me, too many gaps in my memory, it makes me sick,
When I’m waking up wondering how I ended up outside a hospital holding a brick,
Wake up wondering how I ended up getting my kicks from getting dick every other weekend from a skinny hipster kid who I used to give a fuck about, now I’m fucking out.
I used to underestimate my ability to lie, but it’s become impossible to hide; I care more for keeping my ego well fed than I do for keeping my soul alive.
Like a comedown when I’m coming to my senses; I do what I want without worrying about the consequences, then when I have to deal with them I don’t, tell myself to stop but I won’t.
So is it any wonder I confuse love with lust? I surround myself with people I fake feelings for and friends I don’t trust.
People ask why I’m constantly so vexed, they say I need more money, friends or sex; I don’t, I need faith in humanity and a reality check.

Response.

This is a call, this is a call and response
And I’m risking it all for the boy who still sleeps with the light on.
Blood running water thin, and convictions paper fine
But a face that’s enough to make an atheist believe in intelligent design.

Cigarettes and drunken nights aren’t exactly childhood dreams,
But maybe a glass slipper fairytale isn’t what we need.
Run your fingers through your hair telling me it can’t be you,
But maybe children of the gutter need a love story too.

The girl with the red curls is here. She sits cross-legged on the floor drumming her fingernails on her beer bottle. It’s empty but she doesn’t get up to get another. The boy next to her is engaging her in polite conversation, she nods and smiles every now and then but she keeps stealing glances at the sofa on her left. I notice because that’s where I’m looking too.
He wears an expression of nonchalance and only those who know him well would recognise this as well-disguised shyness. His eyes scan the room every now and then but never seem to focus fully. A girl with long brown hair is on his lap and his arm is wrapped noncommittally around her waist, I’ve heard him talk about this girl but never seen her in person before. I can instantly understand why he would be drawn to her; every now and then she throws back her head and laughs at some idle joke he makes, her dark hair cascading down her back and every male eye in the room is on her. Occasionally she runs her hands possessively through his hair and at one point she kisses him hard on the mouth, his eyes widen in surprise and his cheeks flush slightly but he doesn’t resist, and it’s at this point I leave the room, to go count the bathroom tiles or something less excruciating.
Upon returning I notice the girl with the brown hair has gone. He sits alone, head on his shoulder, his eyes downcast, chewing on his bottom lip and the space next to him is empty. I go to make my way over, knowing that all I need is to see that smile, just one smile and then that’ll hold me for the rest of the night, girls with waterfalls of dark hair be damned, and just as I’m about to take a step I feel a hand on my arm.
It’s her. The girl with the red curls. Her wide eyes lock with  mine and we stand in limbo, holding eachother’s gaze. She doesn’t say a word, but those two green pools seem to be screaming at me, almost pleading, and I know exactly what she’s trying to say: ‘please let me have this’.
And it’s like looking into a mirror.
Red curls and fuller lips aside I’m looking at myself. She has the same look on her face as I’ve seen before on mine a million times, it’s the look that’s worn out but alive somehow, so alive, it’s the look of someone who is desperately and hopelessly in love and it’s the look that’s only instigated by that boy over there on the sofa.
Her grip loosens slightly but her eyes are still silently begging, there’s a ferocity there, a fire I can sense and my eyes flicker from her to him and he’s looking this way and that’s when I see it. His eyes are alight. This is her. I stare back into her eyes and realise that I’m kidding myself if I think I have any chance here, and I’m desperate to run and not let her get to me, I’m desperate for that smile, but I can’t deny him this. So I look away from her to show that I concede.
In an instant she’s at his side, gazing adoringly at him just the way I do, with his arm about her shoulder but to him it’s only in friendship for now, he does that with me too, but this is different somehow, this is his soulmate, he just doesn’t realise it yet, but he will. Two people that shine so brightly belong together, and it’s obvious that they’re the only light in the room now. I finally get my smile as it splits across his face like the sun rising on the sea for the girl with the red curls.

I don’t know.

I’m sat in the driver’s seat on a Saturday night.
It’s cold because you’re next to me with your window rolled down smoking a cigarette, the whole car smells of tobacco now but I won’t tell you to stop because I know it’s your vice,
and I know it’s probably the only thing keeping you together right now. I’ve been known to have a cigarette myself occasionally when you’re not around; the smell reminds me of you, and the taste does too.
I’m going to drive until I get us out of here. I don’t know where to go and I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I do know I’m not gonna let them get you, not again.
Streetlights and neon road signs blaze past us, lit billboards advertising mundane things, fast food restaurants and reality tv shows, and it’s so surreal that the normal world is rushing past us, the normal world that we’re leaving behind.
You finally roll your window up and I hear you shivering in your seat. You haven’t spoken for the last 20 minutes because the last time you did I told you to shut up. I can tell you’re frightened so I reach out and put my hand on your lap in an attempt to comfort you. I wish I could think of something to say to reassure you, but the word’s won’t come, I can’t think of them, all I can think about is driving as far away and as fast as possible, anything to keep you out of harm’s way, because I won’t lose you, not again.
You put your hand in mine and I gently squeeze your fingers, and that’s when I feel your flesh disintegrating, getting softer and softer until your hand is no longer there, I turn wildly around to face you and reach to grab your other hand, but that’s disappearing too, every part of you I touch slips through my fingers like sand, I scream and try to pull you back but there’s nothing I can do, you’re melting away, and that’s when I realise
you’re not here, and sure you’re only 50 miles away but that’s ever such a lot and I can’t drive and the cold that I’m feeling isn’t coming through a car window but from the wind whipping all around me

I’m standing staring through the wooden slats at my feet to the sea beneath me, the luminous letters ‘BRIGHTON PIER’ above my head gleaming as the sun sets, and the smell of salt water and donuts and things that usually smell of happiness to me but all I can think about is how I never got to bring you here.
And I wish I was beautiful enough for you,
and I wish that you realised that she doesn’t deserve you
she never did
and that I would be all yours if you’d only agree to be all mine
but I know that’s never going to happen and I’ll never get to see you bathed in sunset laughing as the waves break around us
and I’ll never get to tell you how breathtakingly beautiful you are silhouetted under spinning lights and carnival music
and I’ll never get to make you happy because someone else will always make you happier
and I won’t ever be enough.
And I could skip pebbles here all night but it won’t change the fact that you’re alone in your bedroom drinking wine out of the bottle and I’m not even on your mind, and it won’t bring you back to sit next to me.

Keep talking, I think I hear the stars moving.
All I see is an untucked shirt hem,
and vodka-stained eyes,
carrying you home under amaranthine sky.

I feel really sad tonight and I need to vent so I’m going to do it here because I don’t think anyone reads this blog like they do my tumblr.
I actually don’t want to go back to uni. I can’t believe how much I couldn’t wait to go back at the end of summer and now I just don’t care. I want to stay at home.
All the people I love most live here and the last 2 weeks have just been the best, I’ve got on with my family and spent time with my best friends and it’s made me realise how much I would prefer to be with them all the time.
I love my uni friends too but (and this is gonna sound so lame and self-pitying) I don’t get the feeling they love me as much as my friends in Crawley love me. My friends here always want to see me etc whereas my friends at uni are just kind of meh about it… or that’s how it feels. It sucks because I loved the first year at uni, I felt so close with everyone but this year the majority of my friends live in another house and now I feel cut off from them. I honestly have just felt so bleh about uni recently that I was just really looking forward to coming home.
But I have to go back because I’m enjoying my course and I want to do my placement year and also if I stayed in Crawley I’d be pretty alone anyway, because a lot of my friends go back to uni as well. I guess next year I’ll do my placement year hopefully in Brighton and I’ll either live there which will be nearer to my home friends or I’ll live in Crawley.
I just can’t believe I feel this homesick about a town I couldn’t wait to get out of.

I’m feeling so much shit right now that I can’t even be arsed to make this poetic, I just need to write because I can’t cry.
I do not understand why I insist on torturing myself over something I can’t change. I’m just rehashing it over and over when I know it only makes me feel bad but I still can’t stop.
I feel so bitter and jealous and inferior and angry and so many things I haven’t felt in a long time. I wish I was capable of tears right now.
Just fuck it. I didn’t expect it would be like this. I never wanted to feel this resentful again and I fucking hate myself for this.

we want the same thing, you and I.
believe me i’m more regretful of it than you.
i am all of the things you suppose, somewhere.
they’re revealing themselves slowly.