As of late I’ve been living in purgatory. I was sent here. God has yet to make a decision about me, sometimes he likes me, other times he isn’t arsed. I used to be the favourite. I have always contorted myself in crazy ways to meet the expectation. I have broken bones doing so. But, he likes to keep me here, in limbo. Waiting. Burning. Opposites attract because they cause fires.
I can’t sleep in my room at the moment. It knows too much. I haven’t really been allowing myself my phone either. My phone and I have become too emotionally entangled, it’s become an accomplice to all my baggage. It knows me to be too pathetic and we’ve reached the level of intimacy that only garners disgust and maybe an awkward side hug at pre drinks.
When I try to show the wound I disgust myself. I cannot find a way to explain it. I feel myself becoming very emotional. Not in a tender way, in a hot, raw, bloody sense. In my box room in bethnal green, sitting cross legged on my catholic guilt stained sheets, my emotions are less than desired. You put sunglasses on to avoid looking at it, at me. I lock the door and leave the mess there.
I’m hurt. I’m bitten.
When we take off, I cross myself. When we land safely, I cross myself. I’m so ruined it’s almost an insult. God laughs when he sees it. And then he cries. We land in Florence.
Wherever I go I have to take myself with me. So we run into a problem. Everyone hears about you. Maybe not right away, but it doesn’t take long. I take me, and I take you and so me and you begin to blend. And I am you, maybe even more than I am me.
We visit Tracey Emin’s exhibition: Sex and Solitude. I won’t try to pretend to know much about art. My favourite room was the smallest one. It looked like a chapel. It had about six or seven small canvases with blue and grey paint. They pictured bathrooms, bedrooms, and sometimes a figure just laying there. Paralysed. But all figures in paintings are paralysed. To make something good you have to first make everything stop. Faline wore white, I wore black.
We packed up and headed on. I have my rabbit in my bag. I have a few stuffed animals, they are all rabbits. I have accumulated them over the years. It is not an extensive collection, though it is too many to justify for a twenty one year old. I am twenty two in two weeks. These are the formative years, big birthdays and sad summers.
I write this in a taxi from Florence to Tuscany. I don’t really mind to pay for a taxi because they have better windows than buses do. I don’t really mind to pay extra to ruminate with music and a good window. We barter for a better price. He agrees, but only for a cash payment. When we paid he conveniently doesn’t have any change. We all know we’re being played. We open the door and get in despite it. I don’t really mind, I really don’t mind, I’m very sorry, I’m looking for God, I’m waiting.
As we approached a tunnel we saw a lot of smoke coming from the other side. We drove straight into the fire. Me, faline, rabbit and a fifty year old money hungry italian man in a tiny Citroen. He instructs us to put our windows up. You can drive towards fire, as long as you have some form of protection. But then you won’t feel it on your skin. It doesn’t feel the same. (Do I sound like your hinge date?)
I want to feel the fire on me, in me, everywhere. When we come out the other side, there was just more highway, trees and a wooden cross. It could also be a telephone wire. I couldn’t quite tell. Italy is very religious. God is language. The fire appeared larger than it was. A fact realised only when on the other side of it.
We spend Easter in an empty house in Tuscany. The next day the Pope dies. We leave only for one dinner. We were indulging. We order three desserts. One after the other. A chosen, conscious greed. We are full after one. We continue to order. The waiter warns us against it, we seek it out anyway. I don’t like to eat at the moment but I’m pretending to be someone else. Outside we smoke a pack of cigarettes. I haven’t smoked in probably two years now. Maybe less – when I quit something I try not to count, I just aim to forget I ever did it and slip into a new skin. People think you quit something when you don’t like it, really, you quit when you like it too much.
Later I lay in bed and smell the smoke on my fingers. It lingers for ages. No wonder my ma could always catch me when I smoked. The sin engulfs, it clings to the skin. I can’t move.
When the flight lands, I’m scared to go back to my empty. When the doors open everyone gets up like a fury.