I masturbate before going to sleep—
such a perfectly unremarkable statement,
and yet it would evoke a look of bewilderment,
embarrassment even, were I to say it outright,
unlike mentioning that I brush my teeth after every meal
or leisurely read The Diary of Samuel Pepys
at lunchtime.
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I envy those who venture forth
into the seagulls’ hunting ground—
also known as the Morrisons car park—
with a Chicken Caesar Wrap
or a sausage roll in their hands, as if they knew
that nociception is not the pain
of appetitions I only know
from a thesaurus.
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I filled the cabinet above the toilet
with rows of loo rolls—three-ply,
enriched with lotion and fragrance;
it is the perfect elegant paper,
or at least that’s what the description
on the back of the packaging says.
Quite the frippery for a derrière—
even one as fine as a poet’s.
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I’ve never been good at living;
with every letter—a hostage to schedule,
too petty for heroic self-restraint,
too indolent to be determined about anything—
I wonder what’s better: to share a rib
or bad breath in a rented flat, so refreshingly inhospitable,
like one of those polite expressions we use
when depicting a whore in a yellow poncho
who happens to be the only one who knows
that promiscuity wears sweat like a coat of arms
and ‘no’ is not the same as ‘I don’t think so’,
leaving me with Keats and table tennis as the Last Rites
or another Tuesday.
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I believe in words;
I’m just not a fan.
And I sleep too few hours—
just enough to realise ‘I don’t exist’
is a self-refuting idea that I’ve deserved
after half a century of procrastination
and warm saline gargling—still convinced
that time has tricked me,
leaving me uncomfortable behind
the greatest invention of all:
lined curtains.
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I share a bed with a man
of the same name and disposition,
who reads no books
but webtoons, watching
as a janitor with a besom battles
falling leaves in a somewhat crowded school yard
of his bygone youth,
collecting whispers of a tear
unbefitting the dusk heldentenor,
while masking the fact that we might be dead by tomorrow
with the occasional convenience
of myopia.
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The faintly sordid
yet strangely enticing
scent of an alewife
wafting over the soggy alphabet
pasta in a shallow basin,
the paperback Memoirs
of a Woman of Pleasure on the side,
and a plain handkerchief
freshly stained with shame—
a rite of passage of sorts,
but mostly a prelude
to hassle.
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