How to Jump from a Moving Train

I met him like - maybe 2 years ago (2 years from then, not now) living in London,so messed right up and working all the time for my list of habits would've filled this notebook

anything/everything

stayed in a squat in Deptford, smelt like the past, or maybe I mean one of those museums that recreate the smell of the past - doesn't matter when or where, always the same scent of stale piss, alcohol and rickets.

José scrubs the deck on his hands & knees, barefoot & stripped to the waist - I know where this is going.

Early said he was taking care of me, taking care of me mainly involved pimping me to his dealer. He did take me to casualty one time when I broke my ankle.

"I fell from the rigging, I'll try to be more careful"






tuck & roll

I met S through working - I think we became friends because we looked kind of similar. We'd work together occasionally on account of this obvious resemblance:

"Is that your brother honey?"

but he was radiant somehow and bright, smiled like it was all just some movie with a glamorous ending - like a fucking star. we went to a lot of museums, he liked neanderthals a lot although they made him melancholy. i would sleep on the nightbus with my head in his lap and he would be absolutely still so as not to wake me even if he knew I was just pretending to be asleep.

no-one said anything about this at the funeral.

Proper use of magical powers

Watching some kind of antique pornography found in the cupboard to the left, you wouldn’t know it was a cupboard unless you opened it. No-one there exhibits any typical reactions – like arousal or shock or boredom. cc seems interested, bounces like a prelude to something, and says: “the shed there, no there – it’s out of shot now – it’s for keeping pigeons, racing pigeons.” Everyone shifts the intensity of watching in the hope of noticing something, a pigeon probably.

Some kind of quality fixes the moment, 5 faces in the light of the screen scouring the background to outdated flesh on flesh for a glimpse of a pigeon

When A comes over he is cagey and distant although he is glossy and radiates good health like a well kept animal. I sit in cc’s room and write this.

On the way back from the all night garage, when we come to the main road he holds out his hand and it’s vaguely parental I guess, or something. I take it anyway and don’t release it after we’ve crossed. We have sex in the grounds of the Nurse's Home though it feels grudging and bad tempered. I graze my forehead on a tree. When he sinks his teeth deep into my shoulder in the throes of - passion, or whatever I spit out “don’t fucking mark me” he laughs says; “you should say ‘bitch’ – don’t fucking mark me – bitch” engendering some fantasy of leaving him weeping in the moss.
"It’s just a fuck" I mumble at his back when he kind of storms off out of there without waiting for me to button my trousers or anything.

yesterday

everything is static and sticky for a really long time

look out of the window, call the bird watch service on the telephone and am soothed by this more than almost anything

him: can you imitate it's call?
me: nuh -uh

with a rush of blood to my face so hard i have to hold the receiver at arms length for some seconds

"i can't see the tv" makes some impatient movement with her hand smiled and; "stop phone-sexing the twitchers"

3 green mystery pills on the edge of the sink in the bathroom, swallow them before i even notice
3 fingers in my throat and retch plenty but they don't come out.

what were they? i write on the mirror. already written there: I'VE GOT YOURS USE MINE IF YOU WANT in an unfamiliar hand

buying plasters and oranges with my thumb on my pulse everything rushes a little when i smoke a cigarette on the street but only a little, regular and even

boy from 66 on the wall cat and orange trousers like some half detainee. smoking and damp too, mumble something to him about a party at our house, say "sort of" a lot and shuffle like i'm shifty or 12 maybe, makes me laugh i think

later in the hallway he says: do you guys want some kittens?
my hand inside his trousers at some unnatural angle painful and boring
he's not that interested

bathe

and then every time i tried to lift up my head he'd shove it down again, fingers twisted in my hair nails scrape against my scalp. the floor wet beneath my cheek. tasting my own blood in my own mouth and a ragged edge of my lip against my tongue

is this a game?

through the tiles i can hear the sea lapping against the sides of the boat i am rocked by the sea rocked

spits something into the sink, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand but keeps his hand there covering his mouth, smiles behind it affectionately i think

cigarette?
towel i say shivering and he throws it to me from the rail. i wipe my stomach and dab hesitantly at my mouth he laughs at me "you're pretty messed up you know?" lights a cigarette - tiny fizz as the match hits the water in the bowl of the toilet. bloody hand prints on the floor

curled up on the deck, sun on the back of my neck rope burns on my ankles on my wrists. when they give you rum it's never really rum burns all the way down to your belly all the way down to your feet

once i got fucked with my held under water I lie in a conversational manner. yeah? he says, kind of interested, we could do that? he squints at me, frowns maybe

put your clothes on, your feet are turning blue

last wednesday i thought he was dead lying in my bed my face in the back of this new boy who was asleep. i like him enough but he sleeps so much. i listen to the radio too quiet to hear the actual words and smoke cigarettes and he sleeps
smells like vanilla and something else much less reassuring but then suddenly i thought that K was dead - i don't believe in that stuff so he probably isn't. When we watch a movie jack strokes the back of my head which rests against his legs he buys me books and cooks stuff. I give him drugs and gag him with a plastic bag

maybe i should get a haircut?

tuesday#3

1.7am he attempts to feed the crows in the park - only attempts because there's nothing he has with him that they'd want to eat.
contemplates feeding the crows with the pigeons
the crows pull stuff out of the ground churned up by the machinery, they eat it, whatever it is.
he counts the magpies - 6 for silver


2."I don't know why you still come here"
(to steal your books and make it with your stepson?)
oh, you know, because - he looks around the room for inspiration
because - I learn so much from you


3. "you want me to follow you home?" it was a question, he thought. I didn't - hadn't - but now that you mention it? and he walks off not that unsteadily in the direction of the river.

sunglasses a cheap can of lager a split lip

when I was very sick I knew exactly who k was. I spat at him when he took my pulse. I remember that passage – took my pulse, stole a kiss, fucker
wanna play doctors and nurses?
He fucked me as I drifted in and out of consciousness. You’re burning up, he giggles. It’s so hot inside you and I knew exactly who he was.
All the time I wanted to want him more, like there would be nothing else in my life, like I would fuck myself to death, or whatever. I was very romantic. I don’t know what he wanted;it was beside the point.
if I move my arm in this way - certain gestures or expressions, I think, these are not mine. I have taken so much from him that I can hardly believe he continues to exist. jack lies on the bed, digs his knuckles into his eyes, yawns
the Captain kicks the prisoner in his side ‘til he vomits, curled up in a ball turns him over delicately with his bare toes – giggles helplessly
he reaches for me first thing in the morning and I hiss at him before I am even awake, before I remember who I am.
through the afternoon I watch the video clip that used to be my obsession – just 10 or 15 seconds or so, k and joey on the balcony at frederick’s flat some late summer sunshine white shirts. Go away, joey says, stop filming us. Their almost legendary state of togetherness, joey laughing, makes an ambiguous gesture with his left hand - k drinking gin from a blue glass. played over and over until it attained the quality of a persistent nightmare. I also have a photograph I took in the park when he played in some band, he has:
sunglasses a cheap can of lager a split lip. he is saying no, I’ve never taken heroin, it makes me throw up.
He didn’t look anything like a real person, especially when his lip started to bleed.
I think one time, the time when I was really sick, he held me by the forehead whilst I threw up. I couldn’t look at him for hours. It was just water he said not even gross at all looked up half smiled it’s only stuff from your body, it’s like spit or blood or sperm – it really doesn’t bother me . I wanted to say: you wouldn’t want my vomit in your mouth would you? but I really don’t want to know. So I say I want to come to the party instead.
but you’re sick
I’m kind of better now
I sit up and the room only sort of spins i’ll be ok, can I have some more vitamins? he’s looking at his feet in the mirror.
they’re not really vitamins you know and he tries to catch me as I fall but misses.

crow's nest

i didn't sleep now for 36 hours, and my eyes are rough and swollen.

lookin at tiny little pictures on the net, lookin for my friend, who i lost, who is lost and it hurts but it feels good too, you know?

where did i hear that before, huh? stupid child, sitting here working on you own dumb ass mythology when there is so much to be done and all the while less and less time.

you'll never be a decent pirate if u don't work on them sword skills, spending yr time in the rigging searching for crows. and where is the Captain anyhow? with that sweet taste of sandalwood and blood...

last night i had a fight like an old school fight - real punches, bloody noses and split lips, spitting in the gutter. a handful of my hair and curses so close to my mouth feels like kissing

i love you

i want to say but i aim for his eye and miss tearing a little where the second earring is and the blood is like flowers on the wet white cloth. he is in bloom.

and then we do kiss , for real, around the corner, against the wall. he wipes the blood from my chin with the heel of his hand.



stop shaking he says and i try to very hard

my other poets

When I wake up this morning eight twenty or so Jack is here sleeping in my room on the floor, on cushions. Hey jack, i want him to go away, but he's on a mission to nurse me through this latest bout of pneumonia. coughing like a cute romantic poet, don't spit on my carpet mr keats. sick of being sick, eat fruit don't shoot nothing walk many, many steps every every day, have a routine, eat breakfast.

"your life is too chaotic."

whereas really my life is all order and washed cutlery, ex-boyfriends and jasmine tea. all the time i'm a little numb, hold out my tongue for anything anyone's gonna put on it.yes please.

jack makes me jasmine tea, something i think is a bagel. i'm thinking maybe if i don't speak to him he'll go away, but then i don't wish to appear impolite. Thank you. If i don't speak it's just because my breath is short, my throat is sore.

sex with c

i was laying down all evening reading my book on account of feeling unwell. c is in my living room all evening and there are some other folk round also playing bastardised mah-jong disney games drinking vodka lime because i can hear them little cross shouts. c comes to my room maybe 2am when i'm still reading my undemanding book, shrug when he asks if its ok for him to sleep " stay over" he says like its gonna be some pajama party. i like it he doesn't speak much to me and seems to find it amusing i'm sick. i watch him undress through the bars of the bedstead. i'm laying on my belly with the book on the pillow and he lays on his side touches my thigh, i'm feverish an not under the covers cos the room is so hot, like another country. wearing navy blue tiger pants, green t-shirt.
he's kinda rough, digs his nails into my ass and i'm ignoring it but i'm reading the same line like 34 times, 35 times whilst he opens me up with 1 hand breathes ragged close to my ear. i don't fight him, i just resist some like it's a subtle distinction but i don't actually hit him except once when he goes to rim me nearly breaks my leg holding one ankle pushes it way too far somewhere above my head an i feel like i'm gonna break, also i feel kinda stupid and awkward, so i kick him aimlessly somewhere around the head and he laughs bites where its really tender, the softest flesh at the top of the thigh so i cry out for the first time, which makes me cough some. i love it his good-natured and casual cruelty which is so uncontrived, or maybe just seems so and is un-dramatic enough to make even me want him, it, uh whatever. plus it almost hurts enough. he fucks me kinda difficult with the tiger pants still there, i don't know how, maybe i'm on my side trying to push him away with my knee in his chest but he holds me tight by the hair, my head pulled down over the edge of the bed so i can't really move any without the feeling my neck is gonna snap like a twig.

would be good to remember better. for a journal ...

sometime they're just round my ankle and i'm on my back, listless like i'm unconscious, moved like a doll only i don't wanna lie on my belly so i'm trying a little not to let him do this and it's kind of funny and makes him cum way quicker i think.

always he smiles a lot after we have sex and smokes desperately and is somehow tender and amused at the same time, but he won't let me go to the bathroom and makes me lie under him a long while stroking my hair out of my face. then he has to go - i don't remember why and i wake up this morning eight twenty or so and jack is sleeping on the floor.