There are so many skirts under the table, none of these long legs are mine

Jazz and books. A little piece of heaven on Byre's Road. The shop is practically empty so I let my mind wander slowly along the shelves. There's a pretty little blue book by Stevenson. I haven't read him in ages. Treasure Island was one of my favourites as a kid. I consumed those children's penguin classics when I was in primary school. My gran gave me Kidnapped but I don't know where it is now and I know I never read past the first couple of chapters, and we only ever studied a tiny bit of Jekyll and Hyde and I can never find it when I have money in bookshops. Naturally there's a copy next to the pretty blue book today and I'm 2 quid short.

I found instead a gorgeous red book for £1.49. It was a bunch of short stories by an author I didn't recognise and fit snugly in my hands but a previous owner had mutilated it with a gaudy pink highlighter and scrawled notes in the margins. So I left with nothing.

Yesterday my head was too full. Too many ideas and I was watching everything too objectively. Forming paragraphs about the oddity of walking from one uni to the next. Weaving my way through a separate set of students. My classes this year are nowhere near as social as last year. A lot of the people are much older, look down on the little ones. There's always someone to talk to but few I'd bother seeing elsewhere. Friends from last year have different timetables, ones I know well but ditched. There's friends from high school and I love them dearly but they're reminders of all that ridiculousness. Talking about people I'd forgotten and, quite often, how much they hate me. Always like to hear that I left a mark. And then there's another set, the once a week lot mostly which is still more often than I see half of my friends these days. A set I didn't think I'd bother with since I hadn't written anything in over a year and the idea of drinking with a bunch of strangers every week didn't appeal.

My bag bumped off my ass as I picked my way through my familiar crowds. So much heavier than when I left my house the day before thanks to the addition of dead men's poetry and a hack's novel. There's the beginning of another novel safe in the back of my notebook. More paragraphs form in my head about the thrill of having someone else's writing in my bag, the very fact that my opinion would be sought. I stayed up too late last night pulling sentences apart and weighing up images in my mind. There's ink staining my fingers, my arms, the keys of my laptop, his work, my work. Thoughts flowing onto surfaces, any surface, it doesn't matter I make it my own with a sweep and a smudge with stolen ballpoints.

My diary finished last week and I have no suitable replacement or money for a suitable replacement. S'bad news.

A selection of poetry found in a pile of dirty clothes

Because I don't tidy often enough and my brain's been too frazzled to write anything substantial. This poetry lark is coming surprisingly easy which goes to show you shouldn't claim you can't do something in front of people because your brain may freak out and prove yourself wrong. 12 angry men are still out on this new form of expression for me though.

The slow walk homeward

Turn it up, turn me on
Louder I can still hear myself think
And I don't wanna think
Too much
Not enough
I've been over this countless times
In my head
You spoke eloquent
Words of comforting romance
But in reality
You are deafening silence.

It won't go any louder
Press the plastic closer
The sleeping houses
Lean in, archways of
Curtains and lawns and families
I can't see the stars past their
Slanting roofs, only streetlights

Flickering amber flames
A dog barks
I shouldn't be able to hear him
But the music won't go any louder
So I open my mouth and sing
Along with the voices in my ears
This song was made for me.

Hips swing the sandstone buildings
Back into place
Arms embrace the skies
As curious eyes of light peep
Through veils of cloud.
Melodies splutter to a halt
And I clap a hand over my mouth
Perch on the hood of a
Red Renault
This silence is not unlike your
silence.

I'm watching and waiting
Holding my breath to
Hear better
Some whisper on the wind
An answer
or a hint
Angry buzzing drowns
My epiphany
in vicious beeps
You fell up the stairs to
Your flat hope
I made it home safe
There's a ringing
I can't shake in my head
And all I hear is you.

Better to reign (incomplete)

One can’t help believing gentlemen with Roman noses
even if one hears the most remarkable nonsense
from the mouths lurking underneath such striking features
and Lucy was a particularly gullible one to start with.

She wore her long hair up loosely
bleached blonde waves;
a halo with a rechargeable battery
and wings of blue cotton.

Not since Eve was there such a Fall
no apple this time but a ring
in a smart black coffin
made a hell of heaven.

Noteworthy (incomplete)

Every Monday afternoon
Emily goes to the library
and picks a new book
working her way through the alphabet
Today she is on D.

Dahl, Dickens, Dumas;
she selects a thinnish volume
by an author she hasn't heard
of: Darling, F.
but he has been checked out
twice since September
The paper is violet this month
which complements the denim
blue of the cover and in
methodical print
Emily says hello.

Her note in Cann was removed
Bukowski had been ignored
but Austen held a reply
a thin sheet of yellow
with a tiny lion drawn in the corner
with an over-sized mane.

Taste You

Apathy
is lying on a beat up couch
all day watching
clouds drift by
and people bustle,
hustle, dawdle, laugh, cry, live
down
below
elongated legs on the windowsill.

Numb
is being still
for days waiting
until hair sticks
to the cushions
and slick stains
are left behind
in the shower.

It was raining when I met you;
grey, washed out city
colours clogging drains.
Group therapy
bullshitted behind me
psychobabble
my mother pushed me
too far
my father was never
proud
there was a boyfriend
who beat
a girlfriend
who ditched
I'm my own worst enemy
I have to open up to feel
Bored now, I asked for a light

Arrogant prick
stubbed your own cigarette out on
my arm.

I never knew there were men like you.
every one of my senses craves your attention
bite me
scratch me
pull me
break me
i am yours
lines on my hip
bruises on my thighs
welts on my arm
you made me a heart of burns
don't ever quit
but fill our lungs with
black treacle tar
strangling smoke
lingers forever
in my hair
in my bed
the shape of your mouth
blooms
bright on my marble breast

When you left you took with you my faithful friends:
apathy and nullity
so I ran a bath
steaming water meet shivering skin
scissors hang languidly
in my hand
carving your name in
yielding flesh
crimson swirls in the dirty
bathwater.
I only wish your name was longer

One can't help believing gentlemen with Roman noses

"What's geographical survey do you think?" Ignoring the giant holes in her lobes and the mess of plum hair, she's quite attractive really. And she's like me, hugely disappointed that all we ever talk about are hills and what they might contain. I smile and hope I don't look too ragged. I know I do, but it's nice to pretend nobody else can see. So I smile winningly and unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth: "s'like map looking"

Map Looking.

Oh the shame.

My mother gave me two pieces of advice when I started drinking: don't drink vodka with orange and don't drink so much that you make an arse of yourself. And I try to keep it in mind as I stare at the bottom of a bottle. I think I do ok. I talk shit and there's been a couple of silly moments and I always dance like a fool, not alcohol related I just always dance like a fool. I know I'm graceless enough to be so very far from sexy but that's what spirits, dimmed lighting and booming bass lines are for: ignoring obvious flaws.

I'm a mass of bruises. The triangle is gone. This morning in fact I noticed the last hints of yellow geometry had finally faded. I'll miss it, mostly because I couldn't show it off to anyone. Still mystified as to how it got there but I guess I'll never know. The rest of me is dotted with greyish green smudges. It's idle curiosity that consumes me these days. They don't hurt, not really, and they're just results of clumsiness. Doors, walls, tables, people. I don't pay enough attention. I'm too wrapped up inside my own head. I'm also a terrible fidget. And completely distracted by a dozen other things I caught the edge of my lip between my teeth and clamped down until my eyes watered. Sucking the blood away surreptitiously it struck me that this was an incredibly stupid thing to do. I mean seriously, what the fuck is wrong with me. I stayed out all night drinking away my money and grinding away my cares but I woke up the next morning with all the same shit. Same hang-ups, same regrets of things left unsaid and foolish mistakes I'm tired of learning from. And god, I'm bored. I switched off a little. Slumped down and listened rather than participated. I need shaking up but I'm too much of a coward to do it myself.

But it's not as bad as it's been before. There's a cosy casualness settling in my limbs, feeling secure in who I am, even if she's a liar and a fool. And I don't know if it'll last or if I'll end up driving people away again but it's a comfort for the moment. And the bump of angry healing on my bottom lip is another comfort. It's painful and it's annoying but it'll pass and it gives my mouth an occupation while I'm dreaming away time I should be spending doing something productive. It's a question of perspective, and on the whole I'm doing pretty alright.

The best thing about Glasgow Uni

It's not the education or the pride of actually being there. It's not the community or the pretty buildings or being able to say "yeah meet you in the cloisters at 2" or that ancient musty book smell that permeates University Gardens. It's not watching Neighbours in leather sofas with black coffee and bagels and adorable boys with unfortunate names who speak French almost apologetically.

No, my friend. It's ducks.

Some say I blog too much, I say not nearly enough

I'm just a girl living in captivity

I was there to seduce a prince, there were trials or some such fairy tale nonsense but they were either over or my mind was too lazy to bother with them. I was in a restaurant and they toasted my good work with wide smiles and red wine and he followed me into the bathroom. I don't know who he was in relation to me but he wasn't the prince and I wasn't supposed to be seeing him, that much I knew. He wrapped his arms around my waist and watched our reflection. He told me not to cut my hair, it was long again but curled which is not possible without rain when I'm awake. My dress was blue like his shirt and his stubble tickled my neck as he kissed me. Then the screams started. Ear splitting awful screams and he kicked the door of a cubicle down and I watched a beast of a man rape this girl who'd failed with the prince. Then the room was full of people and it was a bedroom with a cardboard box holding the bastard. The girl was dead, tidied away in a drawer and he was impatient to go. Nobody seemed to mind. I threw myself at him when he tried to leave and he crushed my hand in his before throwing me face first into the door. It was at this point my eyes must have opened because from this point on I had that awful feeling that there was something missing, that if I could just see properly everything would make sense. I never knew why this kept happening in my dreams until Julie and my mum told me I slept with my eyes open quite frequently and freaked them out.

Anyway he told me to go back to his house to keep me safe. I went back through to the restaurant and ended up on a train. There was a boy in a green blazer from the school my dad went to and he sat next to me placing a hand on my knee when I smiled at him. I shook my head when he asked my name, saying I was too old, don't be silly. But I was wearing an oversexed school uniform high pigtails, tight shirt, short skirt and socks that kept falling down. Everything was falling down and I spent the whole train journey trying to right my outfit while this boy tried to kiss me. I pulled a coat off a man behind us and wrapped myself up against the rain as we walked along the railroad tracks and I pushed the boy into a ditch before I made it to his house and his blue shirt engulfed me and I was safe. We slept on blankets on the floor with his brother and he gave me a book with a red cover and told me I was in it but I never had a chance to read because these girls pulled me to the bathroom and started having showers, first one then the other talking irritable nonsense about people I didn't know and there was something behind them I couldn't see. I kept pulling his shirt down to cover my ass as more and more people pushed in and I couldn't breathe. Then his arms were pulling me back to the make shift bed and he pressed his lips against my ear and I woke up.

On the plus side nobody was made of cats and all of my teeth stayed in my mouth.

Time exists but just on your wrist so don't panic

1480 words to go on a subject on which I have no opinion. I do not give a damn about the conspiracy, nor whose account is more useful. I've got little postit notes and highlighters. Pens and notepads. The barest sketch of a plan to a plan. Goddamn I should have started sooner. Instead there's been DIY films, peanut butter, pillow fights, feeling sorry for myself as I sniff into mugs of honeyed water, too many other things to write, I was supposed to link up the gamecube for Julie but I can't remember where I put that cable (please don't be in the cable bag, nothing ever gets found in the cable bag) this is going to be a drag. One full day left to get this done and at least I finished reading the texts. My fingers get distracted so easily. Cicero was a famous orator and could I make a dress out of that NYPD tshirt? I could use that long top pattern from my book of things to do with tshirts, extend it, got enough material to do that. Ideally it should be a shirt dress with the badge above my breast and pockets? In red? Goes with the navy. But it might be a little difficult to manage a collar. And by little I mean I'd definitely have to get my mum to help. But I do have shirt dresses so there's an instant pattern and sewing in front of my mum always makes her laugh. There's a lot of bum in the air, pins in my mouth and apparently a look of intense concentration as I try to cut in a straight line.

My hair actually looks nice today. You know those mornings when you wake up feeling pretty good, because essays and everything else that drags you down are still asleep. The sun is shining (where were you yesterday when I had to go outside?!) cold is abating and I look good. And I have to waste all of this on goddamn Romans. Bleh.

Coffee doesn't have enough sugar in it but I have so little left. Very nearly put castor sugar in instead, could have been interesting. Dad tuts at me, or he would if he was awake but he tuts every other time he watches me make coffee. Talks about how I should be taking care of my body or I'll regret it when I'm old. I point out I can lose weight on a diet of beer, rice, cheese, strawberries and bread and put it on when I actively try to eat properly, soberly and regularly. Sometimes I think my body does like me.

I'd rather be writing anything but this. Which is why I am here, whining at you, the internet. I figure it's a better way of wasting time than picking at the scab on my heel or watching my triangle fade or painting my nails with leftover polish. Oh, the glamour of my life.