clinging to the wreckage

They will stop and speak to a guy guarding cars in a car park because he is young and white but they won’t think twice about stopping for the older non-whites who are suffering equally if not worse. They will try to raise funds for the young car guard but what about the rest? They’ll stand up in protest about one murdered lion because it goes viral on the internet but it seems that before this event they were oblivious to the fact that animals are poached, tortured, and killed every single day of our fucking lives. They think that we can only understand the pain of loss once we have a child and start to imagine that every lost life is that of our own child… it’s like they never cared about the loss of life or suffering of other human beings before they had children. They are too fucking scared to do anything, support anything, say anything, feel anything until someone tells them it is okay to fuckingwell do so.

The curtain sways in the wind like a hanging man whose last light of life has left. Sad songs stumble from the speaker and an ageing man lies alone in a room reflecting upon the things he once loved that have now slipped through his fingers. On Monday he flies to France for purposes of business and it seems so meaningless. Last night he drank with the Irish, German, Italian and the Spaniard only to awake this morning with a terrible hangover and to stare at the bright sunlight staining those swaying curtains with a pain in his eyes, his head and in his heart.

July 5, 2015 My friend’s neighbour has chickens and they live in a pen directly outside of my friend’s kitchen window. When I am in England and staying at his house I interact with the chickens and, over the months, I have fallen in love with them. They are bright and they are curious. They are always awake, like myself, and this makes me feel like they are always there for me. They seem lonely and lost… confused… uncertain as to why they are here. It seems that they are reaching out for love… or even just to be seen. I relate to them. Sadly, they exist quietly, unnoticed, without much reason to continue. It’s early morning coffee time with my feathered friends and if we could speak we would probaby say to each other ‘don’t worry… I understand’. Perhaps they would offer deep words of wisdom. Perhaps they despise the human race for the enslavement we have forced upon them. All I know right now is that they seem lonely and lost just like me.

A period of detachment… a lack of motivation and of desire for anything. Nothing seems appealing right now. It’s all a foggy mess. In spite of threats to my health I stubbornly refuse to give up the things that are killing me. If life is painful most of the time and punctuated only by moments of pleasure, what is the point of giving up these moments? This would make life not worth living. I think of September and South Africa. October and New York City. I found a room in an apartment in Brooklyn, owned by a writer named Lucy. The romantic notions in my ridiculous mind lead me astray. Surely a better option is a known hotel in Manhattan, shared with my best friend.             These days, of course, I am no one but myself. I have survived in this skin for all of these years and I suppose I can do so a little longer. It is 5am and I sit here in the dark, gazing out of the window onto the Madrid night street. There is not even a breeze and the trees are still. The