Tall and bare I stand
Uniquely proud, so very grand whilst gentle fingers uncurl me and point my branches towards eternity as wonderous decoration clings to my limbs Outward evidence of festivity Literal positivity follows spiritual trinity and I feel them looking upon me with wide eyes and wider smiles and I know that here is my home the place I ought to be Where once I stood amongst my own underneath the nightly stars and now those stars surround my bones as my duty warms my heart.
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I am ridiculously empathetic in the most wholly ridiculous manner.
When I was a young girl, growing up on a bitter Lancastrian cobbled street with a defaced "No Ball Games Allowed" sign (unnecessary scene setting not pertaining to the actual story), I used to select a teddy to take to bed each night. I obviously had my favourites (fluffy bulldog, baby giraffe, funny strange turtle that I would stuff my nightie into..), yet I was so paranoid of the others feeling jealous and upset that I would steal blankets from my mum's ottoman and wrap them all up nice and cosy. Every. Single. Night. When I open tinned food, I take the lid off completely and push it right down to the bottom of said empty tin - because I have visions of little creatures getting inside the tin, scrounging for scraps, and cutting themselves on a semi-attached sharp lid. I can very naturally make somebody REALLY feel like a SOMEBODY which has led to the strangest dilemma of being the person that people tell their secrets to which is nice yet scary and often causes my medial temporal lobe to throb. In contrast, I am exceptionally emotionally unintelligent, with a tungsten strength heart (strongest metal on earth which once upon a time assisted my win in a family Trivial Pursuit championship). I won't hold a grudge because I truly don't care enough. The rare occasion that I show my feelings is overshadowed by the overwhelming distance that I can put between us by simply deciding not to let you in. And whilst my apparent disinterest is sometimes the exact opposite, you'd never know because I'm a fucking expert in the art of being a cold hearted bitch. Oh, but did I tell you that around a third of my grocery bill is spent on food for other people's children because some parents are arseholes? Discombobulation reigns. I don’t write anymore
I gave up when the letters of the alphabet abandoned me leaving a pained soul and a ripple of sensitivity Cruel and ignorant aren’t thou ABCDEFUCKOFF Fuck off? Fuck you! You’re the one that left me to my own devices filling the spaces you created with greedy lust and tragic dilemmas Vague disdain where my heart once was So I stop staring at the empty page and go see what’s in the fridge instead. I’m remembering that time that you slammed me up against the wall
a frenzied onslaught of lustful desperation needing to be on top of me, inside me and all I could think was fuck, fuck, fuck I need this I need you to need this too but you actually slammed me up against the door and the handle crushed against my back as I feel to the ground like I’d just been shot You apologised I cried You left I took painkillers and went to bed alone And now I see you across the restaurant with that sexy, leggy, blonde but you’re not listening to a word she says as your eyes won’t leave mine and my playful smile tells you that I’m reminiscing over our mishap and your smirk tells me that you’re thinking about it too Round two? Run away with me?
Bring tea and cakes and smiles make sure you pack your glee although I know you'll scream whilst dipping toes into the freezing sea before causing a splash and beckoning me to join you but I'll decline of course because the task at hand is removing sand from our sandwiches and attempting to stop this windbreaker from breaking off into the wind up where the seagulls sing before they swoop and dive and steal our crusts not forgetting that we must sit here until dusk make the most of our escape before we return to work with disgust don't fuss! I'm quite capable of pouring the bloody tea. I feel lost
not depressed just misplaced growing in the wrong place like a weed with the audacity to bloom in places I haven't been planted Granted it's my own doing but as disappointing words weigh heavy in my mind I feel blind and I need direction. My work life has become all consuming.
I know that it will end, somewhere between mental exhaustion and the murder of my laptop, but right now it feels as though I am on an endless loop of number crunching and rationed fast food. I haven't been running. I haven't been sleeping. I don't remember the last time I rolled around in bed in blissful glee. My body is aching with the need to stretch and shake off this adamant indifference. I stumble around blindly trying to find my reading glasses before embarrassingly realising that they are perched upon my nose. I am littered with dark bruises from tired induced spatial unawareness. I haven't written a story or a poem or a haiku or a shopping list in what seems like a century, words building up in my head like a giant wobbling Jenga. Urgh. Bring me thy blanket and thy Netflix, for art thou fucking knackered. I lie next to you, freshly fucked, mascara ruined, lips sore, skin touching skin, surrounded by the pages of writing that you swept off my desk, my stories, my words, such pretty words, wrapped around us like a lustful silk.
The rush of cold air biting at my nakedness as you lean away, finding the little bottle of ink that had fallen to the floor when you unbuttoned my filthy pleasure, and you coat your thumb pad in the blackest of inks before pressing it firmly against my hip bone, the concentration on your face a melody of intensity and pure sex, marking me with your fingerprint. How utterly fucking romantic, I thought, right before I remember writing this exact scene. Right before remembering that you are the man that I created with my pretty words. Fall in love? No need
when you can stabs one's own heart et ressent le même. These books we read are just dead tattooed trees
Let us smell their corpses with blissful felicity before displaying them for all to see Follow me through the journey of their darkest adventures Splattered with coffee stains over their tightly bound remains Great plains of undulating declaration Vast prairies of narrative fornication But alas, there is no black dye upon this tree’s skin Has no one written your story yet, Josephine? I'm bereft of feeling
and I wish not to antagonise the meaning behind this reasoning of self imposed loneliness and demeaning self loathe One day One day in the very near future I'll start to give a fuck again Start to feel those feelings again that twist and pull and soothe and curl around our internal organs like an emotionally imbalanced octopus. But not today Today I file all emotions between Fuck This and Fuck That Dear weather,
You tried to kill us but you did not succeed as you consumed us in a fiery haze with temperatures swimming inbetween OMG and WTF full of sweating foreheads and shirtless males mostly unsuited for public shirtlessness parading around with pinked flesh Melting Sweltering Baking and not in the nice-cupcake-way Causing folk to pass out on High Streets and High Streets to sell out of paddling pools and fucking Soleros whilst we flew into fits of heat-induced rage trying not to peek at old women sitting wide legged on park benches in front of a passing breeze before fatigue hit like a narcoleptic sneeze due to sleepless nights whilst the night air barely sighed surrounding inconsistent dreams about giant dripping ice cream cones melting phones like a hot sweaty Dali painting I digress. Like I said. Dear weather, you tried to kill us but you did not succeed indeed Instead you tricked us with a sudden drop in temperature causing me to dig out my jumpers because I'm feeling a little bit nippy. I didn’t grow up in ‘the sticks’.
I come from a relatively large town inhabited by friendly northerners and double-decker buses. But here I am; living in a quaint little southern village with limited mobile phone reception and too many sheep. It takes half an hour to get anywhere, forcing me to survive on grocery deliveries from the supermarket, which come with a complimentary ticking-off from the driver for having the audacity to reside on a single track road. “SatNav doesn’t reckon this is a real place, luv!” Oh do stop whining, dear fellow .. this is the countryside. And, of course, myself and my fellow villagers are irrationally suspicious of new faces. Outsiders. Speculations will start at the Post Office before travelling to Mrs Tibble who’ll whisper to Stout John who’ll pop into the local pub to discuss who and why and when … like an elongated game of Cluedo, without the murders. Sometimes with the murders. The local is the hive of all knowledge. And what with it costing a nifty to taxi your way home from the closest town after a night of shenanigans, the local is also the hive of all social activity. Including a rather serious game whereby passionate gents throw wooden sticks at dollies. I kid thee not. But the real ales. And the pies. Oh, the pies! But not on a Wednesday when we are blessed with the arrival of the travelling fish and chip van. Everyone partakes, almost ritualistically. A little like the tradition of pushing people into the river before they can be called a local. Weird folk. I’m classed as a local. I jumped in voluntarily the first time, but there have been several shoves since. I don’t quite fit in. My brash, volatile personality sticks out like a turd in a fruit bowl. My language is too vibrant, my clothing too fancy or too exposing, my face doesn’t fit. I refuse to spend a small fortune on wellington boots. I run, for fun. But as I jog through the fields during the early morning glow, in my overly priced running shoes and my too-short shorts, with the wind cutting through my unruly hair, my face a blaze of heat, and I look down at my dog, happiness all over his face, before I look up at this view .. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. My walk to work was a slow solemn affair
unable to get Manchester out of my head the comatose mother still laid in her bed entirely oblivious of her young daughter’s death And we can scream WHY? into the black shadowed sky but no one will answer Because terrorism has no name no-one to blame no-one to explain why atrocities so fearful can possibly be fact. But what about our fellow man trolling facebook with fake news, their plans to abuse the act for their political gain Feel some shame I remain scared not just of terrorism, but of humankind Humankind what a funny word Human and Kind An oxymoron we often find but also the light the surrounds the fear like the blanket that diminishes the fire Such conflicting emotions of giant proportions as we love and pray and hate and grieve. Yesterday I was unfortunate enough to spend my evening with a group of ghastly women; unsavoury remarks were flowing as quickly as the cocktails and resulted in a collection of words written at approximately 2am this morning. Herewith the unedited ramblings of a tipsy Josephine.. Slut. Ugly. Whore. Sexy.
Too fat. Too thin. Too small. Too tall. The things men say men say Men The things a man says to a woman Degrading, defiling nobleness hidden within the crevices of his trouser pocket where he keeps his wallet and keys and the last ounce of his philogyny And we smirk and jut out our chin pretending that the words haven't burnt upon our skin Trails of despair show where you've been as we look at ourselves Look At Ourselves Gosh, I hate myself We all hate ourselves because words apparently do hurt more than sticks and stones And we blame the men All men Those men that taunt and tease and make us bleed But we forget, you see that we must show them the right way to be and until women can be nice to women until women can care about women until women stop calling each other vile names playing vile games reclaim some sort of sisterhood where for once we fucking could help one another stand up tall embracing all without judgement for being seductive without hatred for being pretty without scorn for being witty and smarts were applauded and cheered and the stay at home mothers revered Imagine Imagine if flowers didn't compete with other flowers and continued to bloom regardless. Perhaps if women treated women nicely men would follow suit. Dear small line of dirt that won't go in the dustpan
Fuck You You are all it takes to start the plethora of analysis searching for the space between adequately clean and dirty Measuring the distance between a clear mind and a clean kitchen floor Furthermore the impact of stress shifts through me Yesterday it was the size of a ladybird in the palm of a bear Today it's the bear Biological warfare in the gossamer of my mind as I start to count to ten imagining the anxious tunnel dissipating before kicking at the line of dirt and walking out of the kitchen. I was the lowest scoring student, and yet art class was entirely therapeutic for me. My inability to achieve a satisfactory grade meant that She left me alone, almost to my own devices, whereas my peers had their creativity sucked from their very soul with her critical manner and archaic philosophies.
I was eventually pulled from the lesson and placed back in Latin, for the purpose of ensuring I got straight As. But I didn't need to learn how to draw, I was a writer you see, even then. They wanted to paint the world red; but I wanted scarlet, cherry, ruby, blood, cardinal.. But art class did teach me one thing; that there is beauty in this world regardless of whether you understand it or not. And your lack of understanding doesn't make it wrong. So as she bellowed at me in her shrill voice, "I don't understand what this is saying to me!" I'd simply reply, "That's because it's speaking to me, not you". An offering of teenage art, plagued by lack of talent and a heavy dose of not-really-giving-a-fuck: My writing has been rather serious of late, most likely due to bitter loneliness and the fear of my vagina closing up. So, in the spirit of tomfoolery, here is LIFE ACCORDING TO JOSEPHINE
I never used to cry
Not even when Robert Woodcock asked me to be his girlfriend seven hours before dumping me at the school disco Not even when I learnt that grown men do evil things to innocent little girls Not even when my best friend chose death over her depression Not even when he created scars on my arms with his fiery cigarette stub, that shall remain a blight on my creamy skin forevermore Not even when, time after time, I was reminded that I would never be someone's first choice Not even when she, he, they died. But now. Now I cry all the time. At everything. The sadness of opening the fridge and realising that there are no pickles left. The video of the dog doing that thing, or the man rescuing the cute bundle of fluff. The deep depression of discovering baby ducklings surrounding their dead mother. The sorrow of finding out that the little old lady down the street, who I never once spoke to, passed away. Rain. Sunshine. Cooking for one. The guilt of eating all the profiteroles. The acute inability to make the perfect cheesecake. Finding a hole in my stripy tights. Watching them flirt, hold hands, whisper sweet nothings in one another's ear. When the box-set ends but they didn't make another series. Sit ups and squats and lunges and running. Getting home from the supermarket and realising that I didn’t purchase pickles. Menopausal, they said. Fuck right off, said I. And then I cried. I’ve never been able to keep my hands to myself
Nor my mouth Or my words The beautiful chaos of curiosity taking a peek at the pretty atrocity that is my life Making sense of the monstrosity like a blissful purging explosion of knowledge bursting into the sky with every touch or taste or the feel of your face against mine It’s a wonder don’t you think? The mundane mixed in with the glassed rosy tint? But an unfortunate case of over thinking creating an unblinking devastation releasing the clasp of discipline undoing the buttons of my self control and burning the tips of my delicate fingers "Too short", he growled, as he looked down at her face, startling green eyes staring back up at him. What was it about this incorrigible girl?
He was forced to use all his strength to be gentle as he placed his hands firmly around her soft waist and lifted her onto the vanity unit, the mirror behind her illuminating on her long, red hair like a siren warning him of the stormy dangers ahead. She hadn't uttered a word for several minutes which was both disarming and unexpected. She always had something to say, especially to him, and mostly filled with profanity and detestation. That mouth; that beautiful fucking smart mouth. He pushed her legs open and stepped closer. Her breathe hitched, the only sign so far that she was as affected by him as he was of her. There was that one freckle, just above her plump lips, that drove him crazy and he bent slightly to lick it before his need took over and his tongue traced her bottom lip. She tasted like fruity cider, strawberries and limes, and he wanted more. Her fingers gripped his forearms as his hands roamed her body, restricted by the Stone Roses t-shirt that stretched tightly round her tits and had caused an involuntary hard-on on too many occasions. Her head tilted back ever so slightly, her glossy mane swaying, distracting him from her lips. His hands immediately reached round and pulled her hair, her head tilting back even further, as he forcefully claimed her mouth, groaning as she moaned, tasting apple orchards and feisty sex. *** She couldn't get enough of him. He tasted like scotch and fire and a multitude of sins. His hands had moved back to her waist but she wanted them on her breasts, kneeding and pulling on her nipples. Too many clothes. Fuck, she needed to see him naked. Her hands were in his hair and his tongue was in her mouth and, by god, it all felt so right. He pulled his head back and cupped her face, her disappointment obvious as she scowled at the removal of his lips from hers. But he looked at her with such a fervent hunger that she knew he hadn't finished with her just yet. A quick flick of her erect nipples and his hands were back on her waist, gently lifting her and placing her back on her unsteady feet. His large hand grabbed her small one and he turned towards the door, pulling her alongside him. "I'm not fucking you in the pub toilets. You're coming home with me." |
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December 2017
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