'Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,' cried the Nightingale, 'and Life is very dear to all. It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and to watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and the Moon in her chariot of pearl. Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill. Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?'

I consider Birkenau my birthplace. i consider that i am a living remnant. i consider that in 1946 i emerged, i burst out, i was looking for trouble and ready for pain, i wanted to kill nazis, i was born to kill nazis, i wasn't some innocent born to play true love and real romance, the parlor games that pass for life. i got these fucked up compassionate parents who believed in law and kindness and blah blah. i got these fucked up peaceful jews. i got these fucked up civilised parents. i was born a girl. i have so many planets in libra that i try to be fair to flies and i turn dog shit into an esthetic experience. even my mother knew it was wrong. she named me andrea for 'manhood' or 'courage'. it's a boys name; the root andros, means man in greek. its 'man' in the universal sense, too. man. She and God joined hands to tease me almost to death. he put brains, great hearts, great spirits, into womens bodies, to fuck us up. its some kind of sick joke. let's see them aspire in vain. let's see them fucked into triviality and insignificance. let's see them try to lose at checkers and tic-tac-toe to boys, year in, year out, to boys so stupid He barely remembered to give them an I.Q at all. He forgot their hearts, He forgot their souls, they have no warrior spirit or sense of honour, they are bullies and fools; lets see these girls banged and bruised and bullied; lets see them forced to act stupid so long and so much that they learn to act stupid even when they sleep and dream. and mother, handmaiden to the Lord, says wear this, do that, don't do that, don't say that, sit, close yr legs, wear white gloves and dont get them dirty, girls dont climb trees, girls dont run, girls dont, girls dont, girls dont; wasnt nothing girls actually did of any interest whatsoever. its when they get you a doll that pees that you recognise the dimensions of the conspiracy, its institutional reach, its metaphysical ambition. Then God caps it all off with Leviticus.

Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head.
so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name,
like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables
like a charm, like a spell.

Falling in love
is glamorous hell: the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger, ready to kill; a flame’s fierce licks under the skin.
into my life, larger than life, you strolled in.

I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine,
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone’s face, from the shape of a cloud,
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me

as I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like gift, like a touchable dream.


carol ann duffy.

( syncedoche, new york )

( valentine )

its may. i am 23 in 27 days.

like every girl, i only need to look up and a little to the right of me to see the hysteria that belongs to me, the one that hangs on a hook like an empty jacket and flutters with disappointment that i cannot wear her all the time. i call her my hysteric, and this personal hysteric of mine is designer made (although i'm not sure who made her), flattering, comfortable, attractive even, if yr around people who like that sort of thing. she is not anyone, my hysteric; she is blank electricity dancing around a filament, singing to kill. it's not that there are two majas; there is only one but she can disappear into her own tension and may one day never come back.

amy eleni gets it. when i first tried to describe the hysteric to her she snorted and said "you can't speak for all of us. my personal hysteric walks three paces behind me at all times, and when its all a bit much i kind of hang back and she kind of hurries forward and she jumps on my back and takes me down. then she stands up in my place." i said i didn't like that idea. i said it sounded like a denial of responsibility, a denial that amy eleni was underneath her hysteric. "i am underneath her" amy eleni said, "she has her fucking stilettos digging into my spine".

the author of the book from which that quote was taken from was born in 1984.

in this house i am sick doing or saying something even slightly unfavourable then hearing the fatal words "you sound just like yr father" or "aye yr yr mothers daughter alright". what a disgusting hybrid i must be if i am made up off all my parent's unattractive qualities.

( deborah wrote me this two years ago )

'love? an invention of men to make us bend to their will. believe me tasha, love or not, without money, a woman is at the mercy of men.'
'i don't agree, and anyway if you have an artistic passion, money takes second place.'
'does it? why shouldn't art be renumberated? love is, often.'
'yes, but only prostitutes..'
'by prostitutes you mean those amoral women, scorned by right-thinking people? but does prostitution not exist in every walk of life? doesn't the artist sell himself when he makes money out his talent? and the actor when he interprets someone else's text? the journalist when he writes what everyone wants to hear? even the bookseller, when he exchanges works he hasn't written, for coin of the realm?'
'are you refering to victor?'
'victor the vanquisher, that trips off the tongue. but be careful, his victory over you might cost you dear'
'no, ninon, you won't convince me. i love waking up beside him and having me hold him in his arms.'
'i like waking up beside a man too. as long as he gets up and goes away'

in my town in animal crossing today pascal was hanging about the beach. he asked if he could share some words of wisdom and i said yes.
he said "being in pain is natures way of telling you yr an idiot".

found them in the cupboard. i used to make loads of signs for my door when i was a kid. did anyone else do that? thats my own attempt at hieroglyphics. waaayhey.
i wish i was a 8 again.

when i say it's amazing i don't mean it in my normal everyday use of the word; i actually mean that right now i am amazed. it's worth the 8 minutes out of yr day. actually theres no point posting this i don't think anyone will care. oh well. sucks to yr ass-mar.

10 quid for a doctors note. 10 quid to explain to even more people why i am like this. 10 quid for even more shame induced panics at night. 10 quid to openly admit theres something wrong. again. 10 quid for 18 months of talkingtalkinglyingswallowing. 10 quid for the chance to be told its too late. 10 fucking quid.

( paris when it sizzles )

could fufillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fufillment, in the lack, not the contentment. love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.

i'm forever finding common identities with characters in the books i read. its comforting. my favourite people in the whole world dont even exist.
but now i'm starting to wonder if its all in my head and i'm just compiling a list of the people i want to be.

if we're having so much fun, how come i'm crying every monday? is it just to cancel out the laughter from thursday 'til sunday? i spend the next two days in bed and wonder what it's all about, and when I start to feel okay I know it's time to go back out. i've had the same look on my face for the last two lonely years. twenty-four months of bargain pills, cheeky lines and stolen beers. in all the pictures that i've got, my eyes are so black and wide, and if you look long enough you'll see there's not much life inside.
when I get home in the morning trisha's hosting a debate - if you don't like the fish you're catching then you've got to change the bait.

i need to get a grip.