bad impressions

two poems about hating my house and loving yours

2011-12-29T04:43:00.001-08:00

something savoury

forgive my mood, walking through wind and
rain to visit the house i used to but still do
lodge in. this house is a graveyard of
unopened letters and something savoury
squashed into the carpet, decomposing,
like something living died here.

these four corners hold my walk-in wardrobe
of dirty clothes and lost hours spent sitting at
my desk. coming back only to feed the cat
and shave my legs whilst you keep what you
want at arm's length. i'm a house guest.

something sweet

two sets of keys in my pocket, i divide the time
unequally; visiting you on weekdays and staying
until saturday. we collect bottle caps and leave
messages on the fridge. i do the washing up.
alone in someone else's house feels homely,
sinking into the sofa watching evening tv shows.

dipping hands into hot water cures my cold mood,
cooking for you in the tiny kitchen whilst two cats weave
around my legs, forgetting about going back. beneath
blankets our feet mingle, and you say something sweet
before falling into sleep. i could belong here.

ugh.

2011-07-15T11:20:00.001-07:00

delete yourself from the internet

2011-06-27T06:56:00.000-07:00

the twentieth tuesday

twenty weeks. with eyes like sunlight I
walk the streets through town, beaming. my
head rests next to your shoulder, a tiptoed
kiss against your cheek.

in the b'n'b we laughed at our diets through
doritoes kisses and indian meals, peshwari
sickly sweet. communicating through secret
smiles forgetting they couldn't understand,
your hand hidden beneath the table.

winter swept and dusted under duvets, i am
able to see you better. in the park stretching
out under blue skies, we read books and wear
shorts below a cloudless, bright-toothed grin.
in your sunglass reflection i see myself.

twenty weeks. ending sentences with endless
kisses that make my text messages seem cross-
stitched. before love and endless adoration
found a platform, i am yours in cafes, trains
and country paths. yours in spring adventures,
holding hands and endless laughs

oh l'amore

2011-05-18T03:09:00.000-07:00

i am writing a lot of shit, loved-up poetry.

colours

you found me wretched as the night before,
with clear water and a blank aspirin pout.
and we swapped stories under the gaze of an
owl. hungover, i thought I’d like to know you.

when life before was watercolour, we're
acrylic. thick strokes and hard lines. i stick
snapfish shots to my walls. each awkward
pose is poetry, and my hand at your throat.

on grey days we make our own smudged
sketches. spread out under canvass, i'm
washed out from staring at a morning-white
ceiling, two people and one blue towel.

you're yellow, or orange. i group people by
colours and you're brighter than the others,
twin green rain coats on overlapping
schedules. i am joining the dots of each day

to make weeks, months. each tuesday
cooking in the kitchen, lingering on each
kiss. fuelled by clichés, under the gaze of an
owl. clutching my crooked, crimson heart.

intense

2011-05-03T06:55:00.000-07:00

bodies

separated by noses, this is the closest i can get
to you without osmosis. we fall asleep eye to eye.

on the day they killed the terrorist, ten years
of history sealed itself in a body bag. unaware,
under the glow of the laptop i looked up at you
and cried, feeling the weights of time lift.

fifth july two thousand and nine

2011-04-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

just found this. i can't remember writing this poem, but it happened. sometimes i forget that it happened, but i remembered last week when i was applying for a job and saw his name. asshole. i've been learning a lot in manchester, i realise.

necessary

yesterday you defriended me on facebook

for writing on my blog that you had ‘obvious intentions’,

forgetting the way i protested as you moved your hand

between my thighs.

i gave up trying

to explain that i didn’t know you

as you positioned me in the darkness,

and thought only of next morning’s bus ride home.

scientology poem

2011-04-27T08:56:00.001-07:00

now come up to present time

those words, spoken in a tone
i'm told is forty, was enough.
a positive postulate with
no counter-thought
anticipated or expected.
designed to give perspective,
a Serenity of Beingness.

i opened the book and
read its inscription, from
the girl who promised
to love you forever
and felt nothing.

life revision

2011-03-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

moving in

there’s a picture of a corner shop printed
on the tiles in the kitchen, boasting linen and
fresh produce from centuries ago. i sweep
coffee granules from the counter, lift twin
steaming cups to the bedroom. the floorboards
creak and groan. all my stuff’s laid out; clothes
piled in a new wardrobe, big enough to hide in.
curtains and bed sheets clash like dogs and cats.

i said goodbye but kept my keys. like i was never
really leaving, made plans for curry and cocktails
so i could still be that ghost. floating from room to
room and calling each one home. anonymity at large.
i’ve a list of broken postcodes on my phone
reminding me where to go. each door is left ajar.

sticky limbed and silent at 2AM, i sweep the covers
from my shoulders. we try to sleep, in this strange
hotel hell with someone else’s heating bill. empty
mugs and boxes have piled up. there’s a special
spot for baggage in a house where people speak

too loud. i’ll cry about it when the lights are out,

but tomorrow - we’ll explore this town.

i love this woman

2011-02-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

"I could count the things I didn't do yesterday that I should have done. I could count the things I should do today that I'm not going to do. I'm never going to accomplish anything; that's perfectly clear to me. I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that anymore. I don't amount to the powder to blow me to hell. I've turned out to be nothing but a bit of flotsam. Flotsam and leave 'em - that's me from now on. Oh, it's all terrible. "

- Dorothy Parker, The Little Hours

cats-on-wye

2011-01-30T15:24:00.000-08:00

man, i'd forgotten how much i like reading books

so i'll write a poem instead

2011-01-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

the fifth tuesday

minutes before the movie ends, the candle burns

out like clockwork. i think of numbers, firsts

and lasts. we’re a mess of legs and interlocking

fingers as you shift to kiss my neck. it’s dark.

in the house you found me, the hollow beneath

your shoulder is a quarry. i can feel all the bones

below your clothes but still i grab your jumper

to bring you closer. waiting to wake up with you.

you’re asleep. i’m on the doorstep, freezing.

‘fresh air’ is a fumbled excuse for making poetry

from these moments. in-jokes. weeks ago you

were unknown, but time moves faster here.

most things are a mystery, like a stranger laughing in

a silent house. i could explain this in sentences. verbs.

words mapping us with coffee dates and late nights,

but i won’t. i’ve got cigarettes to waste with you.

why, happy twenty eleven

2011-01-18T09:16:00.000-08:00

digging up flowers

he bought me tulips, their yellow beaks

barely open. the days are still dark. with

idle hearts and busy hands we get by, typing

through the nine-to-five and meeting later

to moan about the day. we pick indian

confectionary, sickly sweet your sticky

fingers brush my cheek. under sheets

we invent music, kingdoms, speaking

in a new language of whispered confidences.

II.

something is lost in the lights of the sign.

reflected, the casino’s spaghetti letters

ripple beyond recognition when i ask you

‘what do people do when they go out?’

your hands mime along the canalside,

shrugging. pieces of us are missing.

later, buzzing from each empty dial tone,

my fingers scrape the screen like a spade

digging silently into the cold ground (as if

to dig up flowers). the silt-water vase

goes unnoticed.

III.

the ground sighs and opens, giving in

to new shoots. bent is the shape we make,

cupping coffee mugs and leaning over tables,

a tempo beat by frustrated fingers never still,

i've not seen him since tuesday, and you say:

'every bargain bucket bouquet eventually wilts'.

you were wise then.

distract me from the winter, please

2010-11-19T06:14:00.000-08:00

Leaps

it’s spring; you know the drill.

the heater roars its final bursts of heat,

the leaves are brown and brittle.

saturday morning still, as the air

around us, we wait inside with baited

breath whilst things outside us grow.

oversized jumpers coat our frames

like moss, and i find lost cinema stubbs

down the back of the sofa. you itch.

we’ve got a quota, a running total of hours

spent seething under damp ceilings waiting

for the world to wake. counting down each hour

until it’s time to walk the streets of Salford

without reason. the squirrels drop their nuts

and run; gasping into a new season.

2010-09-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

you are not special you are not special you are not special

thunder and lightning

2010-09-23T06:15:00.000-07:00

i wrote this ages ago and it got a really bad reception. i don't care. i still love you.

Exclusivity

Only you.

No more kissing men

in warm rooms; Your mouth

makes me lose control more

than rum and cokes do.

It is decided.

With words that a dream told you

I needed more than others. More

than lovers. More than other lovers.

We wake up together.

Your face.

Buried in my neck and kinder than

most, probably. We’ll fall in love

and book a holiday and beautiful

cashier girls won’t affect me

Anymore.

We dress to impress each other and I

borrow clothes from your wardrobe. These

big shirts feel so good hanging onto me.

Hung up on me.

I am starting.

Understanding the concept of togetherness

and speaking without embarrassment. To

say that I simply can’t be with anybody other

Than you.

five minute poem

2010-08-11T16:06:00.000-07:00

every-where’s coming together

we stand in stations, thread ourselves

through tram lines, linking fingers until

wherever home might be i know it’s here

everyone’s coming together when they

touch my arms and tell me how long it’s been

(and I talk about you over whiskey and a grin)

thinking how grown up we’re allowed to be

my bank balance is zero, stripped down to

master bedrooms and living room furniture

we talk about soon, with both our names on bills

knowing that everything’s coming together.

make me miserable

2010-06-06T09:44:00.001-07:00

i am in love and therefore cannot write any more.

last year seems so long ago

2010-04-13T17:07:00.000-07:00

Situation Summer

chewed up in the choice of the move,
the season spits us out the other side like pips.
in search of a new life, we’re waving at neighbours
and stealing smiles from strangers; trying to make contact.
we relax in the anticipation that something will happen soon.

new rooms prickle with the heat and people speak with alien
accents in the street. what we do not say is stilted and when
she leaves every day it’s to stake a claim in something else,
performing to a crowd until she’s bought.
(muted by the mornings i stay indoors, until august is a
flush of hushed visits, unspoken agreements that i am not in.)
we’ve comfort in common until she doesn’t come back.

in the house of the man who fed me lines and called me delicate
i took a photo of two green chairs in the garden, faded and buckled
like couples breaking into each other, all the while thinking;
‘will i ever?’

unless it's fictions

2010-03-27T05:02:00.000-07:00

i have a bit of a thing about kitchens at the moment. i think it's because i spend so much time cleaning mine.

The kitchen is a six-foot squared box of utilities James does not know how to use. He contemplates the science of it all; of ovens, kettles and tumble dryers. The unseen processes which occur within them to make them work, like a body. The image of his mother at the stove superimposes itself over the scene, stirring a saucepan which boils steamily at the closest hob. He marvels at her magic.

i am having fun in my life.

(a haiku)

2010-03-13T03:46:00.000-08:00

everyone thinks you're contemporary but i think you're an avant-'tard

i wish there was a
postmodern theory for your
pretentious bullshit

i'm back, i think

2010-03-04T09:15:00.000-08:00

small apples

on a lunchtime squeezed
between vinyl LPs he saw
them together and said she
looked dour, with a frown
that would taste sour
like small apples,
puckered and brown.

comforted by the concern
of his angry words -
“i could have killed him”
made moralities blur, as
i practised my sneer
in the rear view mirror
thinking how nice it would be
to soften in the sun.

the best thing for you would to be queen, so be queen

2009-12-07T07:05:00.001-08:00

i am alive. i worked a lot, created bonds, had an affair, wrecked a home, got fucked around and left alone, bought some arts and crafts in a disused mill, got a tattoo of a raptor on my wrist, became ill.

there was a time when every day was marked on the calendar which hung on the wall above my desk. blackly inked X's told me what to do and my energetic, organic flatmates herded me into a pattern of how to be. i drank strong coffee and spread rumours inside my head to pass the time.

i am an angry young woman, i think.

this is the place i made my first mistakes

2009-11-04T00:51:00.000-08:00

Rain

I
you never asked to see the weather report
said it made you feel cold and anxious
even if we were predicted sun.

II
you smelt of popcorn
or hope. a burnt shell atomised
and tumbling through life,

reminding me of that first fight
over nothing, saying something,
your body vibrating next to mine

or the day we caught the bus
to somewhere else, you snatched at
my fingers like a responsibility
and I pulled away.

we couldn’t be bothered to shout -
but dull clouds gathered overhead
as you took your things
and left my house.

III
last night I sat outside
my cigarette tracing the thought of you
and was surprised
when it rained.

love on paper plates is great and you make me smile

2009-10-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

gwendoline riley came to keele. unsung number four launched. then some other things happened. freed up was good. my housemate wrote an article for rainy city stories. we went to the event and saw socrates read about chinese food. ate chinese food. chris killen is reading at keele on monday. keele is 'buzzing' with literature based fun. meanwhile, i sat around hyperlinking.

i am writing a novella about facebook. is facebook a good subject for a novella? seems appropriate.

this evening i 'test-drove' my new grey coat. felt like paddington bear. underneath it i was wearing a purple top and a green belt. i felt 'powerful'. went to sainsburys twice in one day and was paranoid that people knew. get that a lot; worrying that people recognise me in shops i go into a lot and think 'she comes here a lot'. i don't know.

feel moderately addicted to 'dating advice communities' on livejournal.

i have a 'motherfucker' of a headache.

a loan shark took his daughter up the arse for ten pence

2009-10-04T15:57:00.000-07:00

psst, internets.

i just thought you should see this.

and it's boring to hear of another young truth and what a typically shit thing to do.

2009-09-23T07:32:00.001-07:00

i sent a lot of terrible emails this week. the first thing you need to know about me is that in emails i talk to everybody like they're my friend. even strangers and ex-boyfriends-who-ruined-my-life. so if you're one of those and have recieved an email from me this week - i'm sorry, probably.

my old classmate michael announced on facebook that he is going to be a dad next year. i feel like 60-70% of my highschool class has or is having a baby. i am twenty-one.

manchester orchestra aren't actually from manchester.

getting up at 5.30AM for work is an odd experience. i couldn't walk in a straight line on the way there. i ache from wandering around the first and second floors trying to work out what part of the law section a book called 'moot law' went, and reading the first pages of island and city travel guides so i knew which country they were grouped with. my geography is appalling. copenhagen is in denmark - i am learning something every day.

i went to keele and opened old wounds. i feel/felt/am pretty miserable, but ollie bought me a singing pumpkin that we had both danced to in sainsburys earlier. it cheered me up, so i'm sharing it here to cheer you up too:

simon cowell has no sense of humour

2009-09-17T13:43:00.000-07:00

what what what am i doing?
i feel like i want to push nice boys against the wall and kiss them.

i won't.

i feel 'pent up' and 'restless'.

my friend has a friend who is exactly like me. he likes 'the animals of farthing wood' and uses too much bonjela. every time he twitters it's like he's stolen my identity and i scream. my throat hurts.

i found a copy of an email i wrote to my professor during my dissertation panic.

Subject: Spirit, H. "The Bible" Heaven Ltd, BC?
From: "R. Newsom"
Date: Sat, 28 March, 2009 6:32 pm
To: Ann Hughes

Ann!
How on (God's) Earth do I reference The Bible?
- Red

she never emailed back.

bonding over goosebumps books

2009-09-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

i got a job! working as a book seller! at waterstones deansgate!

i feel the use of exclamation marks accurately captures my pure unadulterated joy at gaining employment. the shifts do, however, start at seven in the morning. i am not a morning person. everyone i spoke to about it laughed at me, even the lady who called offering me the job. damn.

my housemates and i had drinks with stretch tonight and discussed keele writing. keele writing has a room with lamps and a lineup of guest readers which apparently include carol-ann duffy. as well as a naughty tequila habit from the 'old days' (last year). we are slowly taking over the world. so everybody who lives in travelling distance of keele has to visit when something interesting is happening, ok?

brandon wrote a haiku and i really like it. i wrote it on my wall. am I allowed to quote it? oh well, here goes:

"I want to buy love
on ebay and bury my
worried face in it"

(brandon please don't sue me)

in other news, i am probably in love with David Mitchell.

a heavily romanticised idea of autumn

2009-09-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

taped to a window on canal street is an advert by a pakistani woman who is seeking a gay pakistani man for a fake wedding. i felt bad but envious. i would quite like a fake wedding. i'd like to get married for a joke to prepare myself for the real thing. i feel like it would 'take the edge off'.

big brother is over. i'm glad. i became very fed up with people criticising me for watching it. i like watching people. if there was a couple arguing on the street i would be interested. if there was a man crying on a bench i would feel sad. how is that any different? or do people generally not care about strangers? i like to think i do.

i want to live inside my head and poke at it's soft walls and love everyone.

the topless black man who walks around manchester carrying a white rabbit spoke to me today. i felt like i was in the presence of a celebrity. a really bad smelling celebrity. i wonder if he has any friends.

quite often i feel the urge to email people who were previously significant in my life and say 'THIS IS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU'. just so they know.

And at the gate of the embassy our hands met through the bars

2009-08-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

my eggs are sad, but i am not because there is a boy in my kitchen making salad.

inside my heart there is a box of spray cans. when it explodes it is going to paint the word LOVE! in every colour on every surface it touches and it will be beautiful.

but for now i am taking a lot of photographs and smiling a lot.

"I'm not surprised but I never feel quite prepared"

2009-08-20T18:39:00.001-07:00

Manchester has 'gone weird'.

A man with obvious intentions fed me lines and called me 'delicate'. There is a perfect boy who works in a shop and smiles a lot whenever I look at him. On Monday I spent five hours on the phone with butterflies in my stomach and giggles in my throat. Tonight a friend gave me a pre-loaded Starbucks Card because he was scared to ask me to coffee himself.

What is going on?

please forgive me if my hands are where my head should be

2009-08-13T07:42:00.000-07:00

I stayed awake until seven in the morning reading my 2004 – 2006 diary. My life is a succession of destructive relationships and worrying about my face. I slept for five hours and dreamt of people I used to know better.

I wanted to apply for a job so I found an advertisement. The description said “Writer. Online Reviews. 350 a week”. I asked for more details. They said it was to review porn websites. I applied anyway.

I made a lemon sponge cake and took four photographs with my film SLR camera. I feel inspired in a sleepy, distant way. I feel like I have thirty-five poems inside of me. I want to drink coffee with a stranger and sit in a canoe.

I am looking for someone who will love me even though I have a sunburnt nose.

there's nothing prettier than a pretty girl digging a heart-shaped hole in the ground

2009-08-08T15:07:00.000-07:00

Still unemployed. Funky bookshops and intimidating pubs do not want me. At the start of the month my Dad was very forthcoming about a chunk of "rainy day"/"emergency" money my family had put aside for me. Now, when I quite need some, he's being remarkably vague. Have they spent my nest egg?

Yesterday I went to a Poetry Reading Event in the Northern Quarter. Becca won a vintage Coronation Street Mug and we wandered around Canal Street with two guys we met at the reading. One was uncomfortably drunk and laughing to himself. Another acted like Stephen Fry on crack. It was fabulous.

My last wisdom tooth is coming through and my gums are infected. My mouth will open approximately three centimetres and then gives up. I am eating a lot of food that can be swallowed without chewing. A trip to the dentist cost me thirty pounds and I nearly cried infront of the receptionist. The mouthwash makes me retch. We'll laugh about this later.

The wine is disgusting but acceptable, largely because it is free

2009-08-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I don't know which is worse; the hopelessly depressive or the shameless optimist.

Other times, I know exactly which one I'd least like to be stuck in a room with. I just spent ten minutes of my life fending off "u just have to listen to ur heart not ur head", "follow ur heart n evrything will b alright" statements regarding a previous relationship of mine. Back up, didn't I discuss this with you when I visited Sussex in June? You know, the relationship which I completely threw myself into trying to save? I put every ounce of emotional strength I had into that tragic trainwreck of a situation! I made myself completely vulnerable and was (probably justifiably) destroyed for it in the most heartless of ways. So shut the fuck up, ridiculous facebook user, and don't try to tell me that things happen if you want them badly enough. There's a reason I usually disable the Chat option.

(There's also a reason I made a blog as well, one that doesn't involve "using it as a rant station". But really, judgemental people and the blindly naiive have got to go.)

In other less soul destroying news, my alleged "novel" has lost even more of it's resemblance to fiction with lines such as "My drink tastes of overdraft" (Being poor can be quite inspiring but I feel like a massive hypocrite for mocking Joe when I found out the backbones of his novels were more or less true stories), my housemate Ollie has left on a five week babysitting-job in France and had already secured a coffee date with a gorgeous French boy before she even left the airport (She is some sort of wizard; surely these things only happen in films?) and we are discussing an idea for a collaborative Manchester Blogging Site. I have listened to the entire Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe audiobook and plan to investigate the infamous Deaf Institute tomorrow with remaining housemate Becca. We lead a rock and roll life.

Ugh is an onomatopoeic representation of an aspirated sigh or gasp, used as an interjection to express disgust, annoyance, boredom or tiredness

2009-07-24T06:28:00.001-07:00

I think I would throw all my grandiose dreams and aspirations away to live in a tree-house. I'm tired of this wireless internet, running water bollocks. It has taken me five hours to wash my bedsheets this morning and they are not even dry yet. Life is a mountain rescue unit which has given up searching for me. To combat my inability to afford festival tickets I am chain-drinking coffee and pretending to write. The story I am writing is pretending to be about three unemployed students. It's a mystery where I get my inspirations.

Happier Things: Abandoned warehouses covered in graffiti, heart-shaped bracelets full of inspiration, Dirty Dancing, drops of water hitting electric oven hobs, writing on bedroom walls with chalk, cowboy boots.

brief feeling of extreme stupity when i forgot how to spell my own surname

2009-07-19T15:49:00.001-07:00

hello internet.
I have locked myself out of my other blog somehow so am starting again. For more information on the kind of person who could accidentally block herself from her own blog, watch this space.

(relatively) new stuff:
i am living in manchester. for an accurate approximation of how i feel about this, you will need to mix fear and anxiety together whilst jumping up and down excitedly. fearcitety. fear city. i have not yet found a job but apparently this is normal and i will spend many months in a state of poverty and distress until i get lucky and find a career in, i don't know, waitressing or something.

i am watching a lot of gilmore girls, drinking a lot of coffee and smoking a lot of cigarettes. admittedly, reading Rules of Attraction isn't helping with this.

yesterday i went to a literary festival / book festival / festival of books at St Anne's Square and bumped into Joe and listened to him read then Tom Fletcher read then we all went to the pub which seemed like a pretty good end to the evening except it was the afternoon and my housemates and i were drunk by seven pm. whoops. today we went back and listened to Nick Royle read an excellent story about taxidermy and twitter which was pretty spot on as stories go. everyone in manchester writes. everysoddingperson writes. Fearcitety, etc.

i feel very writery right now, in the sort of way where i haven't written anything in months.