Trouble in literature.

i found this on my computer recently. it was written at the beginning of the year. it is truly maudlin.


i have never pretended any understanding of literature i have not intersts in that direction the pieces of writting i enjoy are the ones that touch me emotionaly and intellectually a nicely crafted line is enough to bring me to tears and yet here i already feel out of my depth, its been a while since i felt like this. i dont like it. not since GCSE maths have i felt like i was barely keeping my head above water, this was supposed to be my element i was supposed to flurish here and yet im drowning here, again
i talk too much, thrust myself too far forward, yet retreat from people. i critisised a friend for not making friends and yet i am so much worse. if i let myself think too hard about my lonileness i will crack, everynight my mum rings me and i dutifully tell her i am working hard when in reality i am staring at my books wondering when i got left behind.
i thought i could do this.
but the funny thing is, if i cant i don't really have any other options i dont care enough to study politcs not qualified enoght to study history and i can't act well enought to study drama on its own
i miss m friends who made me feel funny, smart and confident
without someone else independance is and diplomatic way of saying lonley
did my teachers know i would find this so hard?
why didnt they warn me?
arogant.
thats what my english teacher called me.
he was right
there is nothing worse than self awareness. the realizeation of ones inadequacys and short commings. my stomach rebells at the thought i will never be who i wanted to be .
these are dark moods. i thought i had escaped them for nearly two years i didnt have that little black hole in my chest sucking out the goodness, the joy and life
but its back, with a vengance
it is times like these that make me what to drink. to plug the hole tempoarliy and quiet the voice that whispers in the back of my head that i am not enough.

some reason.

for some reason i am sad today
its a little self indulgent i agree but it seems that having no real reason to be sad is not a good enough reason to be happy.
I'm about to go to work which admittedly could be one of the reasons i feel a bit shitty. but im not sure it is.
i still have those weird dreams. i have never liked dreams i always try my best to block them out, just because i never feel rested after a dream. i sort of wish i could have said to him "tell me quickly that everything was in my head" i know it would hurt if he'd said yes but it would also mean that maybe i'd stop having these stupid vivid dreams. nobody is as good in reality as i am making him in my mind. its like a hormone induced torture. it could be hormones, it could be idleness. i lack the killer instinct tis true. i also have a tendency to imprint and thats pretty sickening. i look at someone's face and Que the carpenters, "something maudlin and wet please?"
i doent help that as i write this i am listening to Tracy Chapman playing my heart in the key of 'C'
the lyrics to this song always kill me a little  its called 'Never Yours":

I wear my mama´s dress
Her finest clothes
Daddy showed me outside
To meet you on the front porch
I laugh at all your jokes
But you look bored
I´ve been a lot of things but never yours.

Say I have known some
Less than I should
Say I have known some
Too well for my own good
Say I´m a saint of mercy
Say I´m a whore
I´ve been a lot of things
But never yours.



when i was in Italy i imagined dancing to this at my wedding, hardly appropriate, but beautiful none the less.
i feel better now i think.
maybe i should write in this blog more often, lord knows no-one but me reads it but there is some comfort in it being there. i wonder if'll be able to find it again in the future, when i am old. that reminds me of that poem by yeats i think 
"when you are old" there is a line in it that i love and its something like "remember those who loved you with false love and true/ but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you" 
 i like the idea of a pilgrim soul.

MUM

I  hurt my mum's feelings tonight.
but try as i might i can't say I'm sorry, coz I'm not. not really.
this year i was sometimes so angry, when you have money but decide you are going to be cheap it is easy to say so.
"no I'm not going out, i'm broke"
see easy. but when you don't its almost shamefull. i was embarrased that i couldn't afford my textbooks and angry that i couldn't ask my parents to help tonight i told my mum to grow up and sort herself out.
who does that? thats not fair. she has done everything she could to help me. everything. i always had the best of everything... eventually. what right do i have to be angry?
there is a word that fills the space of our flat. its so heavy i see my mother's spine curve under it.
Bankruptcy.
and with it follow
Unemployment.
Eviction
and
Dole.
these words run through my head all day.
i get home from work, my body aching and my mind whirling and put the little cash i have in a box in the living room knowing it will be gone the next time i open it.
and i'm not angry
im just scared. my dad has been poor all my life. i don't care, i don't give a fuck about that
but not my mum too.
please not her.
i told my mum to grow up because in my mind-world parents are responsible and solvent. they don't need your help and they always know what to do. my mum is the strongest, bravest person i know but today she is crumpled.
and confused
and looks for all the world as if she doesn't know where she is. i have to set up a standing order soon to pay the bills on my house in sheffield. my overdraft is quickly coming to an end and my job might be closing down for the summer as i think of all these things a feel my chest getting tight and my shoulders hurt and i wish i could just go back to before.

Dawn Duologues

Above the small table above Lizzy's kitchen hangs a lamp. it hovers over the chairs like Damocles sword. it's light casting strange shadows over bleary faces, the fridge coughs and splutters an odd counter part to our voices as we wispier our dawn duologue. when did i become an oracle? who says i know shit about life? Sam says i need to learn to take risks, I say he needs to grow up. i badger her to tell someone, anyone, but especially him. yet all the while i know i won't practice what i preach. it's one thing to tell someone to take the reigns of their life and another to do it yourself, my coward heart balks at the thought.
"she makes me want to be better" they say
and i smile indulgently, i know that feeling when you want to sparkle and shine on the off chance you catch their eye, where you're scared to let the conversation flounder lest they get bored and turn away
sometimes i want to be better but mostly i want to be
theirs.

Compromise

It's funny what people will put up with in the spirit of "compromise". What people will ignore to keep the peace. we all have a friend who we find slightly repulsive, who's views offend or make us feel slightly uncomfortable and yet either out of habit or duty we keep them around.
I have seen girls look with slightly wistfully eyes, smiles frozen in place as they laugh at jokes they don't find funny, squinting as they try to make that boy who they wish he was.
it is easy to see how atrocities are committed and allowed to continue with little more than i murmur of protest. Mark Twain said that a classic is a book that everybody wishes to have read, but nobody wants to read. i understand this.  when there are wrongs glaringly obvious, everyone wants to have been the one to stop them. and yet it is only a tiny few who can. who dare to stand up and kick the shit out of the elephant in the corner because, fear holds us back.
i watched this girl watch my flatmate as he prowled around the room. overt masculinity wrapped around childlike fear. discretion is the better part of valour, silence the better part of masculinity.
her eyes followed him around the room while he shouted obscene things about minorities. ignorance dressed as irony, poorly disguised as wit. is this who she imagined when she thought of her perfect partner?
is he who she thought of in her sleep?
probably not.
but in the name of compromise she'll take her into her self, let him leave his marks in her body on her skin and tomorrow her memory will paint him prettier, funnier,sweeter than he is.
but tonight i see the corners of her eyes twitch as she forces out a laugh, the way her hands clutch the sofa when he comes too close and the way she winces when he talks about other girls around her.
bless me with the self awareness never to be her.
or the blindness not to care.

Charity.

i spent twelve pounds today
getting drunk on white wine
secure in the knowledge i've got my mum
so i'm fine
i work and crap and painfull job
but it pays me in cash
so i know that i'm alright when i go out on the lash
i pass the big issue man
and i give him twenty pence
and i moan to my friends about where my salary went
i didnt go to private school
poor little me
i've got a chip on my shoulder
'cause my education was free
my mum works in Harrods
and my dad's on the dole
but my economic situation
leaves no mark on my soul.
i always have clothing, i never miss meals
i don't need an ipod or a new set of wheels
so what is my problem?
why am i sad?
given the choice
i wouldnt change my mum or my dad
if i say im depressed, if i say that i'm lonely
why do i push away those who make the effort to hold me?
there are many other people, the poor, the tired and the hungry
that help me give myself a gold star for giving to charity.

My Dad.

Sitting with my father i see my face rendered in masculine (not bad) but more, i see my own gestures, my way off shrugging off other people's opinions, my need for attention and also that terrible vulnerability on the surface yet just out of sight.
my similarity to my mother are borne of familiarity, those of my dad must just be blood.
as we sat outside Derby station the Backstreet Boys blasting in one ear we chatted about things, and suddenly i felt a connection to him that i hadn't before. the knowledge that one day he'd be gone washed over me. can you mourn something before it leaves?

Around his weary body
he gathers the remains of
another life.
under skin that skin that glows
with half remembered vitality
there are clues that he is
tired, about the eyes
and when he dozes
he is quite chop fallen
a high brow sinking.
and a beard that creates the illusion of a jaw
he gathers the remains of another life
the one he doesn't live anymore.