clinging to the wreckage

I think that pain came from the woman I was in love with fucking someone else as I was walking alone through the park in the rain on a grey day and yet I never even thought about it. It never even occurred to me that she was fucking her ex at that very moment in a faraway place and thinking about someone else with whom she lived (also not me) whilst she was doing so. Repetition. Cliché. Emotional masturbation. I take a sleeping pill and wash it down with wine… it’s not abnormal, I checked with my pharmacist. It’s not romantic. But what is in these modern times? People go to a fucking tower worshiped by Tom Cruise and get engaged. You might as well go on honeymoon to McDonald’s. Books are the only true beauty. Creativity. But even that… so much of it is fake, superficial, duplicated, obvious. And so we sit in a darkened room and sip this wine of Argentinian origin and contemplate the past, the present, and the future. We throw in an Oxford comma because it is so be

The sad man stares at a blank page and is afraid to mark it with more words that sound the same as everything that came before. Rhetorical nonsense borne of a broken heart. Borne of longing. Borne of loneliness. Last night in an open field, beneath the moon, the sad man watched Rancid, a band he has loved for more than twenty years, and came to realise that he was the only one in the field who stood alone and watched. He thought of some of the people he’d once known who were in different and far away countries and contemplated how much they would have loved the event… but how they would prefer to be at the event with other people these days and no longer with him. It doesn’t detract from the enjoyment derived from the concert as he sang along to songs old and new that served to alleviate a sense of being blue.

A distant crack, a roll of thunder, a flash, the clouds tear open and unleash what seems not like rain but rather solid streams of water. The clothes, the rain coat, do nothing to protect the body from becoming instantly soaked and so we run down the street smiling and laughing. A flip flop floats away in a new formed stream in the street and a chase is required to regain this gifted relic. Arriving home it is essential to remove all clothing and the rest, as they say, is history. A Saturday morning run in the Boston heat… an attempt to wash away the sins of Miami. Trying to regain the somewhat healthy routine that was starting to develop before the trip. It follows a flight, a thunderstorm, a tin can trap on melting tar mac as the sun sinks behind heavy grey cloud and a flashing sky. The airline senses the financial loss and prefers to risk the flight – a pilot can dodge lightning it seems, or so they hope – and so we bump and shake into the afternoon sky and climb the east coast of

Six years ago the will to live was lost. Life in England was becoming something of an empty routine. I was driving great distances to and from work and the job itself had become meaningless. I spent my evenings and weekends sitting around in the house drinking copious amounts of beer and wine whilst reading books and watching films. I’d awake with a hangover and to try to cure that I’d make massive breakfasts consisting of highly fattening foods. Once the afternoon rolled around again I’d be back on the beer and eating crisps. Nothing seemed to matter to me. I had lost all the love I’d found, I had completed my bachelor’s degree and couldn’t afford to do my Master’s because I was still paying off the debt that my failed marriage had left me with. I was not earning a massive amount of money so paying rent, maintaining a car, living in an expensive part of the world (the south western tip of Greater London) I was struggling to make it through the month.           

I was born into a struggling family in the north west of England. We lived in a small industrial town on the outskirts of Manchester. Glamour was forbidden us, as, it seemed, was the sun. Sunglasses were for Hollywood celebrities and even Coca Cola a mere fantastical fad from a far-off land where the sun always shone. We had rain and wind and cold grey skies. We looked to the city of Manchester and its football teams for hope of life. We dove into books by Enid Blyton and then our lives changed forever… there arrived Star Wars. Magic, at last, entered our lives and then we suddenly started to awake to certain arrivals from this far-off land. We’d see Smoky and the Bandit and be fascinated by the long, empty, hot, dry streets, the blue skies and the sense of freedom that seemed to ooze from the screen. A short while later we finally took flight from an ice bound northern England and flew to the summer of the southern hemisphere to setup home in South Africa. Suddenly we saw a savage

The week was a hot one, every day sunny, clear and blue. People sat around the swimming pool and absorbed the sunshine, something that always seemed insane to me. I was looking forward to Friday because we had a boat cruise party and I had never been out onto the water of the Boston Harbour. I was also looking forward to seeing the scientists and doctors that I occasional went out with. I’d been invited to this particular event by the first person I knew in Boston, a lady from Barcelona whom I had met through the doctors I knew in Madrid. This is because the wife of my best Spanish friend was a doctor and so I socialized with them frequently.             Friday came and I boarded the train after work to take the short trip down to South Station close to the harbor. It had been raining heavily as I walked from my apartment to the station but I was hopeful it would subside by the time I arrived at South Station. On the contrary, when I stepped out of the station i

It’s something of a mess. The alcohol. The flirtation. The lack of sleep. A life of good fortune being pushed too far, perhaps. Writing and reading and music are the things for which I live and, thrown in with this, I want to have fun before I am too old to do the things I can do today. Therefore, there is a fine balance between remaining responsible and spiraling into debauchery and loss. Tonight, Friday night, we have a huge party here in Madrid and I am writing this with a severe hangover. I need recovery. I probably need supervision. Supervised detox. It is now Monday. I have been on the brink of death. After a heavy Friday night we had an even heavier Saturday. I woke up in the middle of the night on Saturday with severe pains in my lower right abdomen. Hungover, desperate for sleep, I was thrown into a panic and a fear that I was dying. Each time the pain subsided, and I started to fall asleep, the pain returned and kept me awake. I spent the whole day feeling sick