I've been secretly falling apart

Every night I stay up too late with whatever tv series I'm wanting to watch all of/is closest to me at the time and I write. Usually I'll put a hat on to write. This is because I love my hats and I never wear them out. I'm justifying the cost. So I'll write and write and write and feel goddamn wonderful doing so, although mostly I keep that to myself out of politeness. I start on my laptop creating file after file. Some are merely titles and an introductory sentence. Some are thousands and thousands of cascading words. Once the battery dies I trail onto notebooks with doodles and notes and any words that pop into my head. Then I fall asleep and scrawl all over my skin and my sheets and wake up the next morning ready to access the damages. Mostly everything I write can be scrapped. Maybe I'll salvage a sentence or two or an image I was particularly proud of. Even if what I've written is good there's still the endless rewrites. I can't progress if something previous needs work. I often think that if I could just get it right the first time I could get a lot more written.

Today is my last day of the holidays which fucking sucks really. I'd take a week less if it meant I was actually off at the same time as everyone else. I'm going to have 2 weeks of Julie laughing at me from her bed when I drag myself to classes I don't care about. But that's a different rant. Today is redraft day. I'm going to go through everything I've written since September (plus the two pieces I wrote between my awful stage and my present stage) and rewrite the ones I still like. It's a chance to see what I do right and what I do wrong and fix it all til I'm damn near perfect and then I'll rewrite it some more.

It's just a damn shame I didn't have the motivation to do this like a week ago.

Life seem unreal, can we go back to your place?

I have a habit of sticking things in my mouth. Har har yes make all the penis jokes you want, innuendo is all the rage these days. I sucked my thumb for the longest time, I couldn't sleep otherwise. From there I moved onto biting my nails, then the skin around my nails, then my fingers. I still chew on my lip and the bump of the teeny scar, usually when I'm nervous or lying a big lie or just plain distracted. Pens find their way between my teeth, making me cringe when I hand them out to attractive but ill-prepared boys in classes. I try to keep my fingers out of my mouth as much as possible but I am truly awful at breaking habits. My nail split earlier today. I'm not a girl who cares much for the upkeep of my nails after spending so long keeping them short to play guitar. So it was split and I forced myself not to bite it, tried my hardest to wait until I got home and could so easily cut it straight. But of course it bothered me and I pulled it off triumphantly as I gave up watching Celtic lose. Of course that just opened the floodgates. Soon I was working on the skin on another finger. It's just so easy to pull off in dinky little strips. I must have pulled too far this time because it started to bleed. No biggie, thinks I and I squeeze and suck and smile. But the blood doesn't stop. It swirls round my cuticle like the remains of my nail polish and bubbles pop up with the slightest of pressure. All I can think is there are no more plasters.

Bollocks.

Making love with my ego

I've got my trilby on. It's cheaper than a fedora and has the added feature of actually fitting my head. The feeling is coming back to my teeth now I've eaten something slightly more substantial than a frozen piece of cake. My essay is done. Shite but done. The sun was shining when I left and I giggled at the dogs next door, little rat things that they are, and the cleavage that assaulted me to say hello! goodbye! The stars shook their head at me as I jumped off the bus. I'm always missing my stop. I'm too used to being stuck in traffic for hours.

I have the weekend to myself before uni starts up all over again. But there's only one more deadline screaming at me. Ignoring the exams anyway. It's April. Everything will be over in a month or so and the summer will stretch before me like a great big yawn. Time to find a job, save for my dream. Money's such a fickle old thing. I'm reckless when I have it and miserable when I don't.

But for now I have roughly £3 in my purse and a trilby over my hair and my bad eye. The word document is blue and white and waiting for me. There's a half a stupid grin on my face because the night is young and my mind is racing. The guitar on my stereo moans and screeches and I flex my fingers, ready.

Fuck tomorrow and the inevitable realisation that everything I've written is a pile of shit. Tonight I am a fucking goddess and you will bow down to me.

Sleeping in

"It's a fucking masterpiece." The man rolls his eyes and slaps me until tears splash down his fingers. Then he finishes dressing me . Braces roll down my breasts and I pull them away with my thumbs. "This is fucking ridiculous." He slaps me again and my head is swallowed in a hat that's far too big. To see anything I have to crane my head back. There's a girl I knew from a long time ago. She's always here. There's a kitten in her arms wrapped in a trenchcoat. "What happened to him? I have to tell him it's a masterpiece." The cat slaps me.

There's a party in the bath and she's sitting on my lap, playing with the edge of my hat. I'm drowning in her hair but she smells so good I don't want to push her off. But now she's babbling in French and I don't understand and I can't understand and I can't stop talking because if I stop talking they'll all leave me. Ducks roll out of the taps as I try to adjust the water and one of them spits a paper boat at me. It slices a line through my arm. I unfold it but the words won't keep still long enough for me to read them. The girl is kissing my neck and I keep pushing her away. The cat is curled up on my lap playing with the ribbon that hangs down from the top of my stocking. The man is on the phone telling everyone I've finished and they laugh and I struggle to get out of the tub to take the phone away. Somehow the girl dies. There's blood everywhere and I snatch the cat up and put him in my pocket with a ball of string. The boat crumbles in my fingers and petals stick to my skin.

Marie-Antoinette is in the kitchen slicing carrots and laughing. There are more cats in her hair. I disentangle them and try to rearrange them in the coat but they are just cats in a coat, nothing more. The dead queen lets out a shriek of laughter and a Russian shows me the door.

"It is the Queen's naptime," she places a finger to my lips and it tastes like metal. The cats are tangled again in one big kitten ball and I roll them out the door with me and when I wake up I'm staring at the blue of my carpet, my nose inches away from the pile of paper I stayed up too late scribbling on.

Can't you see I'm trying?

The wind brings me whispers of revolution. There are rumours of atrocities, outbursts of violence all over the city. Passion burns away the grey. I move out of the centre. Too many people, so many oblivious to the burning words in my mind. I want to shake them, wake them up. Shout and scream and laugh and cry but it's enough just to walk and know that I am right and they are wrong.

Glass crunches underfoot as I step around dirty puddles and trip over stones. Students thrust leaflets in my face or want just a minute of my time, not my money. One of them skips backwards as I stalk past, singing Baby please don't go and I smile despite myself. But I don't have a second to spare.

The road I'm heading for is lined with trees and since it's still the holiday I have the street to myself. I pause for a moment on the bridge, nodding to the skull by the feet of a man I can't identify. I forgot my glasses so I have to strain to see the ducks dive and sway. The stone is crumbling beneath my fingers and I wonder what it would be like to pull my weight onto the curved edge. To swing my legs dangerously above the swirling yellow water. I take a detour behind the museum, closer to the river. The spire peeks out above trees. I perch on the edge of a bench to execute my plan. The bench is dedicated to a woman named Joan. It's my gran's name. My earliest memory is of her. We walked down a path with huge imposing green trees and the whole place smelled of pinecones. There were red squirrels like my favourite toy and I sat on a stone wall with my feet miles away from the ground, eating cherry tomatoes and making up stories.

I fold the paper carefully, hoping I remember how to do this right. I ruin two sheets before I have a satisfactory boat in my hands and I fold it down flat again to paint my dreams on the prow. Pink blossoms fall on my lap and I place them on the deck. Once the coast is clear I lean out and push my craft into the sea. I ask the ducks to make sure it reaches its destination safely and I fancy one of them nods. In my story you'll find it, like you've found all of my messages scrawled on desks and walls and pieces of paper left lying between the pages of books for rent. I want to switch all these squares screaming deals of cheap booze with words that make your heart soar. That encapsulate that perfect moment in a film when everything is quiet and dimly bright and there's a sense of peace and sadness.

And I want you to find me on a wall with my feet not quite reaching the ground, waiting for you and making up stories.

I'm a fool for you

"Hey Catherine. It's CHRISTMAS!"

"It's not April Fools' Day anymore."

"I know. I just like to be mean to you. BYE!"

I'm a fool for no one

"Hey Catherine! Time to get up! It's CHRISTMAS."

"No, it's not."

"HAHA I know! April Fools!"