Album: Today by Babe Rainbow
Food: The vegan sandwich at The Almeida Bar. An Avocado, Tomato, Hummus, Lettuce and Mayo Sandwich. Salt and Pepper. A good, crusty baguette.
It was deep dark night in the tiny brick house
And wrapped tight in his blanket was Matty the Mouse.
But Matty wasn’t sleepy, no Matty was awake
His eyes like lightbulbs as his paws started to shake.
If I were gold and shiny and smooth and bulbous would you put me in the centre of your living room? Would you run your fingers over my curves, expecting them to be warm, liquid sunshine, but instead finding coolness, your own heat migrating and rippling out amongst the uneven light.
On Sunday I told him I was hurting. Not with words but perhaps with the crackle in my throat. He told me he was driving too fast with an old CD on. I knew what he meant. He let me hear it, white noise and shouting and things that whip past you in the wind, not because I don’t judge but because it doesn’t matter when I do.
If I were a blank notepad would you draw on me? Or would you leave me on the shelf empty and in waiting for the perfect idea -
If I were a blue sofa, with ladies’ calves armrests and a high back, a sofa with cushions worn in the middle and a little sunbleached, a sofa with sturdy springs and a deep seat, would you carry me half a mile home, bickering with your lifting partner before sitting, square and proud on it, at a bad angle in your hallway?
When was the last time you cried at a building? Today I stood for the first time on the lakeside of the Barbican and I felt my hands become blue and light. I gripped the bannister to gulp down a sob but the wind sliced the water from my reticent eyes. The estate is huge. Concrete like this negates power. It reflects time and it flows in a way that could float.
I’m writing this over the text of an exhibition guide. Noguchi. I stared at interconnecting sheets of rock and low hanging lampshades, 70 years preceding the identical IKEA ones that litter my house. Gupta. I stood in a dark room of 100 voices. Now I sit, purposeless in a foyer, considering that I might be a little too cold. A baby with a head like a swollen bruise cries as if he might throw up from desperation, occasionally choking on his own air. I feel fucked off and scammed. I feel on one side of a glass, the life that’s on the other side colourless and unappealing but slowly getting further away, taking natural warmth with it. How the hell do you make it through a bad day aged 23 when it’s perfectly reasonable to be miserable at 58?
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