Dreads

There is a girl that I nicknamed Dreads, for want of her real name. She works at a small shop, down by the canal, which allows you to make pots and paint them. She is tall and quite thin. She has dark brown hair and dark eyes that look sad. Her hair is in dreadlocks, which she wears up, so that the top of her head looks like an explosion of adders.
Most of the time I see her she is in the Porter struggling with the day’s crosswords, a well-chewed pen between her teeth. I want to tell her the joke about the crossword I have just started, the one where the clue is; ‘Overloaded Postman.’
She’d probably smile politely and ask, knowingly; ‘Any Letters?’

Clara

I met a girl today called Clara. She is the same height as me and has short blonde hair that is feathered and light, so that the faintest movement sends it rustling.
I met her in the library while we queued up. She had taken out a load of travel guides and I told her that I’d go with her to Prague. She had no idea I was deadly serious.
She waited at the exit until I was done, to say goodbye. I think she wanted me to ask for her number, but I’m not really looking at the moment.

Statistics

They’re strange things. 3% of the population are homosexual, apparently, but to me there seem to be a lot more people than that.
Someone said that there are lies, damn lies and statistics. I think they were right, but it doesn’t stop me reading them and thinking about them anyway.
There are apparently 10999999 single people in the UK, and me – 11million is a lot. So why can’t I find someone nice to settle down with? Maybe they are all at home wondering the same thing.

Hell

Last night was the first time I had been to bed without drinking a bottle of wine and passing out.
I called it an accomplishment and almost overslept.
Tonight I’m off to a dinner party and won’t drink. It’s going to be hell.

Wallflower

I always imagine myself ending up with a complete wallflower. The kind with inch-thick specs and all the social grace of a cockroach. I don’t want it to be like that, but readers tend to develop the need for glasses at some stage and readers tend to be reserved. I always saw myself with a reader, so it goes with the territory.
I see her having cats and long straight dark brown hair with split ends. She’d be eager in the bedroom and often quite over-enthused. Our kids would be bullied because she’d make them banana sandwiches and call them Kingsly and Star. I wouldn’t be able to stop her and would probably be the first to die; with a full head of grey hair and inch-thick glasses.
I don’t want to be with a wallflower, but it seems realistic. Beautiful women like bad guys, and I’m never going to be a bad guy, I’m just nice. Nice guys finish last, get wallflowers and live in the suburbs, gardening at the weekends and reading the Times.

Meal

I don’t eat all that much. I used to, quite a lot in fact, but not so much now.
I have maybe one meal a day. I don’t cook in my house because I’m not comfortable in it yet.
When you stop eating you don’t lose as much energy as you’d think. I’ve been running on empty for a year now and have dropped to 9 stone. I haven’t slowed, just lost a lot of strength, but that will be back; most likely when I get a girlfriend and she trains me to eat three square meals and snacks and we balloon in our early forties.

Broody

I’m quite a broody person and I want kinds as soon as possible. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so honest with women?
The majority of them dismiss me quietly, either as lying or simply as being ridiculous. Some have point-blank refused to talk about kids, which I find rather distressing but respect their opinions.
I’ve a hard time explaining why I want children; all I can say is that the need is there. Perhaps it joins hands with my loneliness and it is because I want someone who will be there, constant and unconditional. Maybe it is because I don’t want to die and see them as a legacy.
All I really want is a partner who I can love and respect and write poetry about and a small child of our own to look up to me with love in their eyes and a smile on their face.

Bracelets

Having few close friends I tend to like to treat the ones that I do have. I’ll pay for drinks, meals, most of an evening out. One of my favourite, and most personal, treats is to give them bracelets. I like to wear them for a while before I give them, so that they absorb some of my energy. Then I pass them to them when the time feels right.
Each bracelet is bought for each person, and if I decide against giving one, then I usually throw them away.

Postcards

When I was younger I used to write poetry and leave it in books in the library. I did it for ages and never heard a breath of response to it from any of the librarians.
It was some years later that I found someone else who had done the same, then another, then another. Pretty soon I realised it was one of the most unoriginal things you can do.
Nowadays I write random words on blank postcards and hand them out at train stations and airports.

View

I stand about a lot in work. When I do, I tend to gaze out of the windows at the people walking past. I like to make up lives for them, or picture going out with the girls, and being friends with the guys. Although I only see them for a few moments I’m almost sure of them being exactly as I imagine by the time they round the corner and disappear out of sight. It gives me a tiny sense of loss each time. And then another walks into view.

Rolex

A Chinese woman comes into our shop quite often. She’s all smiles and black shiny hair. She’s in her early twenties and regularly buys expensive jewellery. She’ll deliberate for quite a while and then haggle on the price. There is a bit of a language barrier, but we forgive her for the sake of her smile.
Today she brought her parents and bought 4 Rolex. All were 18ct yellow gold. She got 14% off.
I wonder if she will do this for the rest of her life. Wonder if she will ever tire of this life of excess, or decide to work for a living or something. Strangely I can see her working in a jewellery store.

Spider

While exploring Bristol, Nikki and I stumbled on an indoor tropical jungle. We decided that it would be fun to go in and check it out, so in we went and I got some steps ahead of Nikki before I noticed that she had fallen back. I looked back and asked if she was ok and noticed she had a look of sheer dread on her face. I remembered instantly that she had said that she was arachnophobic and there were some tanks ahead of us with spiders in.
To me a spider is an example of Nature’s strange and fascinating variety of creatures. Nikki, a strange and fascinating creature in her own right, looked the weakest I had yet seen her. The whole time I wanted to just hold her and soothe her, but of course we are only friends. So I tried to calm her down and handled the situation with grace and tact.
It may have been strange to take comfort in her reaction to the spider, but then, she had caused dread in me plenty of times, so I thought, in the end, it was only fair for me to see her in such a state. More than anything it harboured the feeling of the an uneasy need to keep her safe, but then, maybe I just thought she was beautiful with her eyes slightly wider and her lips parted to breathe easier.

Virginity

14 and I’m on the top bunk of my sofa-bed with my first girlfriend Amy. We’d been going out two weeks and she’d already tried to have sex with me on the dining room floor of a friend’s house, during a party. I had said no.
Taking off our own clothes we kiss a little and my leg touches her’s, it’s cold. I pull the covers over us. We kiss some more and I put on a condom. I enter her and it is like no feeling I have felt before. I thought it would be better.
It is over within a few moments and she sits up and looks over the side of the bed. Below us there is giggling as Amy asks for her clothes back. I wanted to wait and lose my virginity in a romantic way. Instead I lost it with 5 of my friends on the futon below. I’ve always regretted it, but tell people as though I am proud.

Stalked

Stalked from the Oxfam bookshop to the canal I couldn’t help but feel special when she introduced herself. Her name was Jenny and she had seen me and needed to tell me that she liked me and wanted to get to know me. I was flattered.
She was a sweet little creature with dark brown hair and the same colour eyes as my mother. When we kissed she hardly used her tongue and it was difficult to engage her. When we had sex she wanted to be thrown about.
A week later I was happy and decided to start going out with her. Two weeks after that and I decided that it was time to finish with her.

Packed

I get a call from Jael, her voice is broken and I can tell she has been crying.
“I want you to come to Dublin with me, to live.”
“What?” I replied in disbelief.
“I love you and I am leaving Steve.”
It was an odd conversation, it lasted nearly an hour. Afterwards I felt drained. I said that I couldn’t do that to Steve, he was a friend. I told Jael that Nikki meant a great deal to me and that I wanted to see where it would go. I told Jael that I loved her, but not in that way. She sobbed the whole way, but didn’t plead for me. She understood.
The next day I went to Bristol to meet Steve for breakfast. We had coffee. He smoked his usual cigarette. She hadn’t told him. I was going to, but didn’t. He had his bag with him. He told me he had packed a few things that Jael had been upset to leave behind. He was all set to get on the plane at Bristol Airport. He told me to come and visit them soon. He made me promise. I hugged him, before he left, and cried a little when he was out of sight.

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Toothpaste

The majority of the time I am lonely. I have very few friends. The reason for this is that I spread myself too thin. I need to be around people a lot and in an effort to not lose the close friends I have, I tend not to pester them too much with my issues and my need to be around people. As a result I have a huge phonebook full of people I will never ring and a collection of acquaintances that ensures that I will generally see 5 or 6 people I know a day. This is why I believe that it is in my best interests to get a girlfriend and quickly. Being with a girlfriend is a great excuse to spend a considerable portion of your life with people. You stay in, you have them. You go out, you have them and their friends. You do anything else and you can just about guarantee that you will see them very soon. That is what I need, along with the feeling of love and all that as well.

Often at night I dream that I have a lot of friends and a girlfriend. In the morning I say goodbye to them by name, assigning drops of toothpaste foam to each. Then I turn on the tap and they all swirl together and are gone.

Fist

After work I went home and got changed. Then I headed back into town to be around people. I feel desperately lonely if I do not have people around me and so I can usually be found in a café or bar, it is where I do most of my writing. I went to Porter; a small, grubby little place where most of Bath’s artistic type seem to congregate. It is my haven. I order a glass of wine. Then another. Then another. And kept drinking until I staggered out at 11pm. I managed walking, just about, and set off through the park to find home.

Walking through the park I remember feeling desperately lonely. As if in response a cat appeared. I named him Merlin. He had a curious nature and would run ahead of me if I ignored him, so I settled down on the floor and stroked him. Then I got up and walked on. Then sat again after he darted through my legs. I kept this up for 20mins. Then I walked the rest of the way home alone. Soon I felt bad again, and not having Merlin to comfort me, I wanted to feel something else. So I punched a wall and then drew my hand along it until blood poured, from the wounds at the back of my hand, down to my fingertips.

It was effective, but I would have preferred Merlin.

Pitcher

After being told that we were going to be ‘just friends’, I wasn’t in the best of moods. So I grabbed a bottle of white wine and went to the park to drink it. The wine, mixed with the misery at the loss of hope, was bitter. I thought about smashing the bottle and using the broken fragments to gouge chunks of flesh out of my arm, but thought that would be stupid after hurting my fist the night before.

I downed the bottle and went in search of a sweeter wine. I ended up in an over 21 bar and sat by myself for a further two glasses before I walked up to three girls. I bought them a pitcher of Sex On The Beach and then settled into a mindless chatter, while I proceeded to drink most of the pitcher.

I’ve no idea how I got home and cannot recall their names.

Velvet

When away from her I try not to think about her. I do this in an attempt not to be pained by her absence. I miss her eyes the most, then her lips, both join in the union of a smile that makes my heart stammer.
Being in love is similar to being depressed. It feels distinctly as though your heart is being squeezed. Then of course with depression it feels as though it is rotting. So that is the difference, because love is precise, it shoots through your heart in one stab. When trying not to think about Nikki I listen to music. I have started listening to ‘Velvet’ by a-Ha. It seems to sum up how I feel for her, which is bad because I get tricked into thinking about her and longing for her.

‘Her skin is like velvet
Her face cut from stone
Her eyes when she’s smiling
Will never reach home…

Her touch would be tender
Her lips would be warm
But when we’re together
I’m always alone’

I tell myself that I pressed the repeat button by accident.