clinging to the wreckage

  A cold grey day for a change, it is beautiful. It makes me feel, for a moment, that I am back in England. I ventured out for a walk through the little woods nearby, came home, showered, and got back into bed. Glorious.                     And it stands to reason… those of us who love the literary life, the punk rock life, the artistic life, a life of creativity… we live shorter lives. Because it is not a life of complete and utter boredom, it is not one of marriage and children and sipping health drinks while eating kale salad. We taste pain, we feel sorrow, we drown it with poisons and challenge the world in a creative rage borne of pain. Anything that has been achieved in human history is thanks to those who are trying to push boundaries, to speak freely, to create openly, and to take risks to express a feeling that is often common but which most people are afraid to break their silence fo...

 Between 2am and 4am they arrive home or they leave to go home, passing through the corridor lined with doors, they shout and talk and laugh and then slam the door as they go out or come in. It does not occur to them, or if it does, they don’t care, that the wall of doors they passed are family homes in which people are asleep. In the same way, it doesn’t occur to people who are terrified of spending a cent on health care for all that they spend a lot more money on the president playing golf or dropping bombs in illegal wars. I once asked someone ‘why are you so against healthcare for all?’ He replied, ‘because I am not lazy, I have a job, I have health care.’ I asked, ‘what if you get seriously sick or injured, what will happen?’ Again they replied, ‘I have a job, it includes health care, I am covered.’ Finally, I said, ‘what if you are sick or injured for a long time and you lose your job with no ability to get a new one?’ The lights went on behind the eyes and the answer was in ...

  It feels like a miracle. To see Texas turn blue. To see so many places turn blue. It still seems incredible to see people upset about it. My only thought is that they are not used to anything being unifying, they don’t like unity. They only know war and fighting and competition. They want to win and, more importantly, they want to see people lose. So, when love wins, they are lost. When they only know TV adverts that say ‘liberal crime agenda’, they believe there is a criminal agenda, they don’t go and research what those crimes may be and discover that, in fact, there are none at all.                     I took the day off in expectation of misery or a hangover from celebration. Thankfully, it is a hangover from celebration. I went book shopping, purchased Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere and then went to a bar for beer and pizza. The only way to deal with a hangover. I miss Cambridge,...

  It would be a lie to say that I am not terrified by the dawning of another election. I remember the positivity and hope of the last one… only to be crushed at the last moment. I was in India on a business trip, spent all night watching the results roll in, and spent the next day lying in bed in a state of anger, misery, depression, shock, and disbelief. Today, people see the disaster… but they are just too afraid to vote against it, and they seem to be more afraid of the LGBTQ+ community than they are of endless reckless wars that will have consequences for years to come. For so long we were ‘spoiled’, we became too content, we were simply allowed to live our lives without constant fear and terror and nonsense. We had leaders who were leading and trying to make our lives peaceful. It still truly astonishes me, two years later, that people voted for this guy in the first place, it is even more astonishing that many of them still support him to this day.      ...

  After the death of one’s mother, the world seems cloaked in death. A blood red cloak of unrelenting night. We want to be seen and loved, but all slips away into the darkness, and all we can do is cling to those who remain, hoping for as much time as possible. Before her death, people came into my life needing light, but I was too deeply buried in my own shelter, afraid of having my individuality taken away. That caused hurt to others. After her death, although I had family and friends around the world to talk to, there was only one person who was physically here. She too had lost her mother as well as her father and her husband. Nine months after my mother’s death, this friend died, too, while I was travelling around Europe, drunk with friends. This often haunts me. She deserved more.   As a youngster, secure in my family home, I was able to watch and read anything. I loved horror, in fact, and read a lot of difficult novels about hardship that made me grateful for my parent...

  Awake again… 03:48. Thoughts ripple through the silence and then a solitary voice calls out in the distance. What are the others doing at this time? Are they sleepless, too, or are they arriving home from a party? Are they waking up to travel somewhere or to take care of a restless child? Of course, the clocks changed, we went one hour back, ‘an extra hour in bed’. That doesn’t really apply when one has been awake since a few minutes after 2am.                         I think of the scientist… how I gave so much love, and more, until she left to find more… to find younger, stronger, faster, richer. I think of decades earlier, the sportswoman, how I left because I was merely there to fill a gap but ridiculed by her rich circle of friends because I was not that… they were ‘adults’ buying homes, getting married, having children… I was in a punk rock band, spending my days with skateboarders and artists. I thi...