71 Hove Avenue
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Les nuages avancent
À mille à l’heure
Je me suis noyée
23 009 fois dans la Méditerranée
J’ai beau maudire tes actions
Je me gave de tes mots
À manger du foie gras avec
mes frères et tes soeurs
Je n’accepte pas la réalité
Je préfère me complaire dans
cette Sundance indie rom com
Ne sois pas trop dur avec moi
Je suis seulement plus jeune que toi
6 mois de transgenerational trauma
ONLY A ROOM
–
I feel like I am a slug
Yes a slug
when I’m supposed to be a snail
but I lost my shell
And in every fear I meet,
I’m looking for the shelter
and the reassurance of a house
as fragile as it can be.
And in every fear I meet,
I’m looking for the welcome rug and the fireplace
and the dart game and the tea before bed
And in every fear I meet,
I’m looking for the chamber
to be naked in my body and in my soul
I’m looking for the words I haven’t heard I haven’t felt I haven’t said
And in every fear I meet,
I want to be closer and closer
in the small space that is the carapace of their arms
I’m not a slug, I want to find my own house, that I left behind when I
was born into this world
When I left the womb
unable to carry on my back the weight of the foundations the bricks
the plaster the roof and its tiles
In every fear I meet,
I’m looking for a builder to erect a conservatory, when really
I should set up my own room only.
Aphrodite, ma grand-mère
Dans les fleurs sauvages des marais ou au pied d’un arbre d’ardèche
Dans un paquebot ou une péniche
Dans une taverne flamande ou un sous sol normand
Dans une chambre de bonne ou la chambre d’Haering
Dans un pub aux fleurs de sureau ou sur les Champs-Elysées
Dans une voiture près de Glasgow ou une voiture sur la digue de Dunkerque
Dans une douche italienne ou dans les hautes herbes du panorama
Les hommes coquilles
me protègent des marcheurs sur la plage, m’habritent des éclairs, de la pluie diluvienne, de la grèle et du soleil brûlant. Et quand ils s’en vont, je suis de nouveau sans abri, comme un bernard l’hermite devenu trop grand pour la cabane sur son dos. J’ai honte, bien sûr, j’entends toutes ces choses à propos d’être une femme indépendante et puissante, mais je ne suis qu’une limace alors que je devrais être un escargot, et faire la course avec mes pairs dans le salon. Mais une coquille c’est fragile, surtout lorsque c’est un homme coquille.
The Turkish man
The Turkish man in my off licence was pretty clear.
I have got 3 years to leave hospitality and have babies.
My biological clock is ticking he said.
He said also that there is plenty of other fish in the sea. I told him that a lot of them were not fish I am willing to eat.
He said he was the general manager of the Shard, worked at Savoy, with the cousin of the Queen and Gordon Ramsay. He went to Dubaï, Koweit and his mum is a heart surgeon.
A lot to know about a single man in my local offy in Walthamstow when it’s already 10.50pm.
J+24
J’ai parlé à Platon pendant deux heures. On est sorti de la caverne et on a discuté des hommes-boules et de l’histoire de la bête à deux dos. Il était sympa comme tout Platon, un peu foufou mais on a sympathisé, entre une chenille multicolore et un biscuit au poulet. Il a beaucoup sauté, parce que Platon on ne le sait pas mais il adore le saut à la perche, sans perche. Il n’en a pas besoin. Il peut dunker comme Michael Jordan. Ou comme Bugs Bunny dans Space Jam. On a parcouru les terres de Walthamstow, arrosé les plantes de Nouvelle-Zélande et j’ai beaucoup ri. C’est un marrant Platon, faut pas croire. Il n’utilise pas beaucoup ses mots, comme on pourrait le croire, mais il vous regarde intensément et il vous comprend, genre vraiment. Il a pas besoin de vous toucher le bras en disant “je te vois”. Il vous regarde, c’est tout. Parce que ses bras sont un peu atrophiés, et il n’a pas de pouces. Mais c’est pas grave. Je disais, je lui ai parlé pendant deux heures, j’ai mentionné mon seau de stress et cité ce qu’il y avait dedans. Il ne comprenait pas vraiment, ce n’est pas sa génération et il préfère la sophrologie, mais il a levé une oreille et je savais qu’il écoutait. Mieux qu’une thérapie CBT, car en vrai je n’avais pas besoin de m’arrêter et de répondre à la sempiternelle question “est-ce que vous avez pensé à mettre fin à vos jours?”. Et même si Enya est vraiment une chouette fille, avec une frange et un piercing au nez, je ne pense pas qu’elle soit aussi investie que Platon dans ma condition humaine.
The shower curtain
Every time I enter my bathroom I feel I’m in fucking Psycho. The shower curtain is closed, to avoid the mould to grow, and when I go to brush my teeth and experience great pain doing it, I imagine there is someone sitting in the bath, waiting for me to spit the toothpaste to appear. A bit like Bloody Mary but eh I wouldn’t have to call his name three times while looking in the mirror. By the way, the Lost Mary is definitely lost and apparently my gums knew about it before the main English papers. I’m glad. I’m glad I stopped doing something before it became actually banned. The empty honey pot is on my shelves, with their name, and their address. Also on my Amazon account. How do you let go of someone if their name is engraved in every corner of your existence? I received the parcel. The last word of his mum. An X. A speaker won at the Golden Blog Awards. A headband that is not mine. Perhaps another ex-girlfriend. Or one of his sisters. I will never know. I don’t want to know. Every time I enter my bathroom I feel that all my feelings are hiding behind this curtain, between my tea tree soap and their expensive verveine shower gel and that they will jump on me when I’m going to wee at night. My head is like a shelter, where I protect myself from the bombing like in Chatsworth Road. I go back to it, to explore every little situation I have been in. I look into it with a magnifying glass. And I see over and over again the details that I might have missed. I watch them carefully, I touch them and like the statues in Musée d’Orsay I polish them with my hands until they’re no more than a smooth surface without asperity, without edge. Until they turn into 2 dimensional image that I can’t open anymore. Like when you’ve opened every door of your advent calendar at Christmas, and now you can just throw it away. It’s useless as it is. Until the situations become abstract memories that I can let go of. Until there is nothing to break behind the curtain anymore.
Rupture – du latin rumpere – to break
J+20
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut faire le pont avec 31 autres personnes.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut regarder les couleurs diluées sur une autre peau.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut servir table 11.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut monter dans un paquebot amarré.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut voler une gousse d’ail.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut faire pipi entre deux voitures.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut acheter une robe Ganni £6 au charity shop.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut être vulnérable. Puis silencieuse.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut écouter son voisin Martin roter et parler à son chat.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut apprendre à connaitre un chien avec un nom de philosophe.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut être nourri de curry et de dhal par des marxistes.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut chialer sur Beirut.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut dormir dans des draps noirs.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut oublier que c’était peut-être trop tôt.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut regarder Love is Blind en buvant un mauvais vin.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut pédaler lentement. Et longtemps.
Quand ça blesse trop fort, il faut crier. Sans faire de bruit.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut prendre ses amis dans les bras.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il faut appeler sa mère et son père et parler de la pluie.
Quand ça blesse trop fort il ne faut plus penser aux auberges de jeunesse, et à l’Australie, au saké, à la poterie, au stand up, au roller, aux photos dans la table de nuit, aux photos dans le téléphone, à la xbox, à Disco Elysium, à Marseille, à Porto, à Ballymote, au lit défait, au kalimba, à sa mère, aux chaussettes sales sur le sol, aux débuts, à la fin, à la pizza cheeseburger, aux crêpes ratées, aux crêpes réussies avec des zestes de citrons, aux t-shirt Married at first sight, à Ron et Lana, aux cheveux coupés, aux crises – d’angoisse, de panique, de colère, à la musique traditionnelle irlandaise, à l’Irlande, à la famine, aux filles mères, aux oranges et clémentines, au téléphone qui ne dit rien, aux quatre lettres qui s’affichent depuis plus de deux ans. Et qui s’affichent moins qu’avant. Et qui ne s’afficheront plus.
J+13
Can you roll me a cigarette?
Yes please. You haven’t rolled since you were at uni. And even if it was windy you could handle a little paper, tobacco and filter. But now you’re 32. You thought you were better than that. You thought you could live on vogue – they’re too expensive, bloody £16 for a packet – or vape – you never had so many gum disease in your entire life. So yeh, you’re back into the rollies. Menthol filter at least. But you dropped your tobacco everywhere and your cigarettes look like diseased chicken. Or children you’re not sure. But you don’t care, because eh you’re in charge of your life. You’re responsible for it. People say you need to prioritise yourself, you’re the most important person in your life, and you need to do what makes you happy. But what if nothing makes you happy anymore? What if you wake up in the morning and it’s like someone died over and over again. What if you don’t see the point of washing your face and your feet and your face again. What if you cycle 2 miles to get one more beer when everyone is going to sleep. What if you see his name everywhere, in the street, in the cinema, on youtube. What if you don’t recognise your face in the mirror anymore. What if you want to move to China for good? What if you want to burn the table and move to China? What if you’re actually so angry you can’t get angry? What if you want to walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk until no one know your name and your face. What if you disappear. What if you transform into basil and you can be picked up for some chinese recipes. What if you transform and you’re just soil, and dirt. What if you go back to France and you get nurtured by your family and friends. What if you give up on anything and everything and anyone and everyone. What if you just get depressed for a bit.
J+2
The San Miguel fell off my handlebar
Mercury is retrograde since the 23rd of August. You thought about it, warned your ex lover about it and bam it hits you hard.
Still.
You can’t reach the admission team, and Scottish power is being flaky. You can’t fit all of your spices, and the bathroom is already full. Your pink towel is filled with holes and their wok is vintage. Probably from Asia. You don’t have any olive oil and sneak theirs when you want to cook your stir fry from Tesco. They wanted a pescatarian flatmate but you’re coming with your chicken sweet and sour ready meal that stayed out of the fridge for a day. So now you’re afraid of eating it. But you’re also afraid of letting it in the fridge because they wanted a pescatarian and now there is chicken in the fridge which you hope they didn’t notice. You’ve got too many jackets, too many for one body but you can’t get rid of it because that is the only thing you think is stable in your life right now. Your jackets. The raincoat from Petit Bateau that you bought when you arrived in London 8 years ago, and the rabbit fur jacket you bought from your Thai friend because I don’t know, it’s second hand so that’s okay. But now you can’t wear it because you fear your flatmates will disagree because they have a dog and surely they will disapprove on a rabbit fur jacket. Especially because they have a lot of rabbit oriented items in the flat and it must mean they really love rabbits or have a rabbit in their life. Your chopping board is in plastic, and it’s filthy, you had it since you left your parents, so like 15 years ago now. Can you actually keep a plastic chopping board for that long? Surely not, but that is the only chopping board you have, and you like it, because it’s part of you and who you are. But it looks dumb next to their beautiful wooden massive chopping board. You fill the fridge with powerade – the blue one – and cans of beer sometimes, because you’re sad but you feel you shouldn’t cope like that because you saw on Instagram that actually if you want to heal you have to go for a walk, take a bath, read a book and definitely not drinking beers on the terrace by yourself. You’re thinking about writing standup but you can’t even spend a night with your friends without thinking it’s too much to handle, and you have to smile and put a brave face on, because you spent two weeks crying and pacing in the staff room. You think that now is too late to be sad and grieving. And even if everyone is telling you the opposite you still think it’s too much to put on other people. Your phone is not charging, you’re having aerophagia and you lost the little cable to charge your portable charger. Mercury is defo in retrograde and that is not the right time for it.
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