Poetry and other squiggles
Tuesday 1 June 2021
precious to me
Wednesday 5 May 2021
unseen academics
lanyards and lapel pins
blazers and badges
but zero contracts
contacts in the cold
old way of working
out of sync
out of office
out of touch
base when the
freshers
reach capacity
crowded hopes
and until then
just
hold
on
Monday 3 May 2021
evidence
every appointment requires another piece of paper
another
piece of paper signed by a specialist
a
specialist looking for solutions to my wrongness
my
wrongness measured by how it annoys normal people
it
annoys normal people that i seem to be coping well
i
seem to be coping well and fuelling my own survival
fuelling
my own survival and thriving at this point
thriving
at this point and it may come as a surprise
it
may come as a surprise that difference doesn’t always equal failure
difference
doesn’t always equal failure if you are accustomed to cracking codes
if
you are accustomed to cracking codes you are capable of extraordinary successes
you
are capable of extraordinary successes and even the occasional happiness
and
even the occasional happiness if you stop to notice a certain guy
if
you stop to notice a certain guy and take a chance on magnetism
take
a chance on magnetism because you have it in spades
you
have it in spades and he has spotted your brilliance
he
has spotted your brilliance because he is a specialist
a
specialist looking not for solutions
but
for companionship
with the current
resisting equals restlessness and suicidal tendencies so it’s wiser to go with the current even though it means sleeplessness and submission to the keyboard or the notebook and pen and a bleeding callous on the first knuckle of the middle finger of the right hand while the left hand is coasting clean of ink medication wears off around nineteen hundred hours and away we go again sliding into steep swells and sinking into stories subsumed by daytime routines and coffee machines and the effort to maintain the masking and oh, will you look at the time, time to go home get out of these layers of lies and lie down, down, down to the wire and the moment the synapses sense freedom they snap open the straight jacket and jump out onto the page or better yet the stage and they scream blue and green until they get taken hostage by a rip, rip, rip cord of sleep
find the seam
everybody talks about the bad bits and never the good stuff, like how we can compute all available sources of information and make a lightning-fast choice for the next, best, course of action and that this makes us invaluable in an emergency, and like how we can find the seam of gold in an otherwise endless wall of greyness in the middle of a project and come up with a brand new solution that evaporates the weight from everyone’s shoulders and that this makes us irreplaceable in the creative industries, and like how we might seem to be doing nothing but we are just quietly brewing brilliance and next minute we’re writing at the speed of sound and doing the work of twenty sub-editors in the space of one afternoon and that this makes us indispensable when a deadline is approaching and like how we are more than squirrel spotters, we are ebullient and sensitive and smart, and yet everybody talks about the bad bits
queer...as in gay?
as in different from that slippery notion of normality
as
in out of bounds sensuality
as
in hyper-aware
as
in oscillating between too-muchness and not-enoughness
as
in haircuts hurt but bondage doesn’t
as
in can’t remember their name but can remember that little freckle they had on their
toe
as
in started writing and didn’t stop for nine hours
as
in this room is too bright
as
in the buzz of sleeping devices is too loud
as
in some nights it’s one drink and vomit and other nights it’s twenty and no
impact
as
in a death-wish has always squatted upon my chest
as
in brains are sexier than hips
as
in a tickle hurts but a punch doesn’t
as
in comprehension is possible only within poetics
as
in music and mathematics look the same and are equally nourishing
as
in phone calls are frightening but public speaking comes easily
as
in structure is a double-edged sanity
as
in hyper-aware
as
in out of bounds sensuality
as
in different from that slippery notion of normality
diagnostics
we interrupt our regular programming to invite you consider the possibility that your struggles cannot be explained away by the current diagnoses and that you may have something altogether different and more complex running around inside that queer head of yours something altogether different and more complex than garden-variety anxiety and depression see the issue may not be serotonin after all but rather dopamine and given your answers to this test this test this test yes another test lead us to believe that indeed you are even further away from what we call normal than we had initially thought now try this new concoction of medication there’s a good girl come on back in a fortnight and let us know whether you felt more subdued in which case we are correct or whether you felt like your heart was beating so fast it would break out of your chest at any second in which case we are incorrect and you will have experienced two weeks’ worth of speed-living and we apologise in advance but this is the only way we can know for sure and it’s for your own good that we interrupt our regular programming to invite you to consider the possibility that your struggles cannot be explained away by the current diagnoses