Aspirations

Piya and Conner were the beginning of caring for me.
We didn’t have aspirations. We didn’t care if we were compensating for families that didn’t care for us. We were just three kids looking for something to belong to. Closer than friends. Closer than siblings, because for all we knew we had stronger loyalties. Our brothers stabbed us in the backs as soon as they could reach. Our sisters clawed our faces at a crossed-word. Home was a battleground that we avoided, daily, for as long as we could. Ours was a world of distraction. We didn’t care for anything but each other. We were more than a family. We were part of one another.

Universe

In the song Around The Universe, by The Beatles there is a section at the beginning that speaks to me. One of them says “You all right richie?”. Every time I hear it, it makes me smile.
A lot of the time I think about what it means to be content. To have that mantra of enlightenment run through me. A lot of the time I need that smile it gives me.
Contentment is being ok with yourself and everything. Utterly unchanging. Nothing is going to change my world. Except me.

Butterflies

I told a girl once that I could feel butterflies in my stomach. Told her that every time I looked at her pretty face, I got a feeling of trepidation that seemed to make me all light-bellied, a smile appearing on my lips, tugging at each corner.
Each time came a reply of annoyance. She turned to me and said ‘eat something then’ or ‘you want to go to the doctor for that’, but I’ve never doubted we have the same feelings for each other. We split up mid-winter.
I never mention the butterflies now, but still each time I see the woman I love I can taste pollen and wings.

Hours

Telephones are a strange idea. You’re listening to a voice on the other end of a wire. It usually unnerves me, but with Much it is different. I’ve talked to her for hours now and we could go on talking. I’ve woken up after a night of talking, my throat is slightly raw and I still have that fluttering feeling. A little while ago I cursed that feeling, but this time I think it is shared.
In as much as Much is honest and sweet, I can’t help feeling scared. I’m more than easily hurt, it wouldn’t take much, but then Much is more than capable of anything now. She could reach out, climb out and become something real. She could turn around and shatter me. There is no help for the helpless, I have to settle the feeling otherwise it’ll eat away at me.
When it gets to that point that going on is so much pain that giving in seems easier. I can’t help but think, ‘why the hell did I come so far?’ And I keep going, gritted teeth, coat braced against a wind that tears through me. A road like this is a daunting thing, but when you think of what you are reaching out for and how far you’ve come, there really isn’t any other option.

Starting

We first learn of love when we call it a name, someone’s. That is true enough, but we also first learn of pain because grief strikes where love struck first. We walk with open wounds. Love has never been easy for me. It’s like faith. I could never believe in a god because I couldn’t fathom his intentions, his designs. It’s the same for a girl who likes me.
Lord knows what she wants, why she wants me.
Yet nowadays I’m catching a glimpse of splendour when I just close my eyes slightly. That way that on long car rides, you squint until streetlights burst into stars. I’ve just stopped thinking and I’m starting to live. With life comes love, which means it is a natural thing, nothing to be feared. I still get stuck on how like death it is, but I don’t want to dwell on that.

Child

I had one for the blink of an eye. I dreamt him back into being, after Melissa had the abortion. His name would have been Ben. I hadn’t known a thing about there being a child until a friend told me 9 months after Lissa left. She told me that Lissa had run away so abruptly, because she couldn’t face the fact that I would have wanted to keep him.
So I dreamt him back into being. First the size of a few cells, up to the size of a pea, then I drew motion into him, a tadpole. He grew to a birth of nothingness.
I accelerate past his first Christmas, first few steps; learning to ride a bike, kick a ball in the park. Past his first crush, heartbreaks, accidents and exams. Cast away hobbies and nights on his own, just thinking and listening to music.
I imagined a wife for him, children and then past my own existence, to him telling his grandchildren about me.
So I dreamt him back into being, but he wasn’t back. All I keep thinking is that he ended as a smattering on a toilet bowl and then I start crying again.

Kingdom

You can’t help but hate the guy that the woman you are in love with is currently seeing. More often than not he is a lazy slob with bad manners and an alcohol problem. Most of the time he’ll be taking her for a ride and all the while be scouting for a better, or rather more pathetic, example of a woman to take advantage of. But you hate him most because the world you long for is his kingdom.
You hate him because you are a better guy but you’re too polite to say so. So you end up hating yourself too.

Shipping

I used to watch a friend get fucked against a shipping container. Whatever boyfriend she happened to be with would unzip while she took down her panties. Then they’d lift her, so that her legs could wrap around their hips, then they’d pound her into the side of the large metal wall. Until they came, and she was lowered to the floor.
I’d sometimes not be able to watch and would close my eyes and measure time by the beating of her spine. I was convinced that I loved her, and that this was slow torture.

Lissa

So I miss the bitch and can’t stop thinking about the night of the photo shoot. Almost the best fuck ever. Second best if I’m honest. Sexy, extravagant, outrageous.
I want sex like that – no guilt. Let someone else worry. Let me suck and lick and scratch and bite and fuck and let me fall in love, like that, again.

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.

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.

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.