clinging to the wreckage

All is silent and still. Nothing fills the room but the mists of death as they flow slowly through the dark air and sniff out the potential for untimely demise. There doesn’t seem to be much reason. There doesn’t appear to be much hope. A black nihilism takes over and all positivity is obliterated. Speaking to you… seeing your pictures… thinking about you… just makes it worse. There are so many things that I have to hide. I hide who I’ve been seeing in secret. I hide the things that people say to me… the things they say they want to do. People go on in hope, oblivious to the nature of mankind. People are oblivious to the doom present in most aspects of life, particularly those such as marriage. The ashes of marriage blow away in the mild breeze of disgust, they are lost and forgotten. People cling to tradition but it is dead. Their god is dead. Their holy matrimony is dead. The stable family is dead. Modern life is only for the beautiful and young.

Can’t fit, can’t breathe, can’t write. Tonight is the loneliest night that I have known in some time and there is nothing that I can do to change it. I look up train times and ticket prices for my mother who will soon visit and I think of ten years spent in the wilderness. For a period of time I had a tiny new family of two but I wouldn’t expand it so two became one once more. I thought of this tonight as i bought and cooked dinner for two... you can’t buy dinner for one unless you buy microwave meals... so I eat one portion and put the other into the fridge for some other time. I travel into the office each day and listen to people speak about their houses, their partners, their children, their parents... and, although I am pleased I am not them, it is difficult to find someone with whom I may share my views... everyone wants to be the one talking about their houses, their partners, their children. I come home and wonder if they can even conceive of the life that I live. Even those

The only ones I could look up to (or could even bear) where the ones who did not (who could not) adhere to convention; those who questioned standards of behaviour and simply did things their own way. Oscar Wilde broke the standard usage of words and created lines of genius spoken by characters so outrageous to the accepted standards of society that they were terrifying. Kerouac drank and travelled and wrote without any thought of career or a standard way of life. Fitzgerald was permanently drunk but still produced beautiful prose. Bukowski refused to accept any commercial aspect of life and defied the boring dogma that most of humanity adhere to; such as the simple cliché ‘you can’t drink alone’ and that ‘literature must follow specific rules’. He wrote prolifically and changed accepted literature. Morrissey refused to sing about or think about or praise sex. He claimed to be celibate and asexual and sang songs about loneliness and sadness – themes society is taught to avoid at all

Years of refusal to give in to social standards, to conservative lifestyle, to dogma, to tradition, to convention, have resulted in me being alone, and sometimes lonely. However, loneliness is the only life for me. The pain of being alone is never comparable to the pain of suffering ennui in the daily compromises of a serious relationship. My days are filled with poetry, prose, film, music, wine, thought, and attempts at creativity. Loneliness is a small price to pay for such tragic beauty. Others are out arguing about the kind of dish washing liquid they should purchase whilst I am sipping wine amidst a pile of Bukowski’s works. So, sipping wine, I listen to the music flooding through my rain wet window from the Guildford Festival and I feel happy and proud that we are able to put on such a growing show. My only hope is that some Joe Strummer-like camp fires are lit tonight and that the music continues into the morning.

A night spent looking for the inspiration that I had temporarily found and then lost after the bad religion concert has proved fruitful. After a few drinks with a colleague after work I came home and watched ‘The Future is unwritten: Joe Strummer’ and felt deeply inspired once more. I’d also been listening to the Dead Kennedys on the way home and after twenty five years I still feel excited when I hear them. To almost overdose on this night of inspiration, I read a poem or two by Bukowski… one about a cat who had survived numerous ordeals and whom Bukowski was trying to claim to be his inspiration. In true Bukowski fashion, the poem ends with ‘[the cat] knows it’s bullshit too…’ and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud and feel a true sense of fulfilment. I pity those who look to shallow forms of amusement and entertainment. Those who look to the boyband put together by a marketing company. Those who read books written specifically to appeal to slightly frustrated women going on holi

A day off to recover after a day and night out in London. Drinks in the day and a punk rock show in the night. I finally got to bed sometime after 1am but awoke, thirsty, a few times in the night. I had finally fallen into a deep sleep around 6:30am only to be awoken by my phone ringing at 7am. I picked the phone up and saw the name of the one I love flashing on the screen. I felt happy to be awoken by her. I answered with croaking, hoarse voice and she asked whether I was going into the office or working from home. I told her that I was on leave, and then she proceeded to shout at me for some innocent message I had sent... one which had been read by someone it shouldn’t have been read by. One I made as innocent as possible on the off-chance that it be read by someone it shouldn’t have been read by. The call ended abruptly and my sleep too. There was no further sleep, just a stabbing pain in my metaphorical heart. Lonely, lost, longing for the one who called only to receive such a h

Outside, beyond my closed curtains, in the sunlight, they rush around attempting to make the most of their summer days. They rush to the shop and buy things to sacrifice upon the gas fire before racing to their family and friend’s   houses to spend the days chatting away about the new things they have bought or are planning to buy and about how they are striving to become richer and about how jealous they are of the new things their neighbours have. They constantly hurry and scurry like ants in an attempt to build their mini-empire and then, before they have found the happiness they spent their entire lives searching for, they get sick and die... never having paused to reflect, to listen, to think, to enjoy what they had and where they were. Inside of these closed curtains I feel content. Nothing has changed in years, the cats and I simply live on... the simple life. I own nothing, I can lose nothing. I enjoy every quiet, peaceful and solitary minute that I have in here. Tomorrow th