Hope.

It’s poker night at the pub so this finds ever grateful to be at home alone. I’ve got to say it,I’m proud of Lilli.She is making it through to the last round of her tournament every week while drinking her body weight in 5 seed cider. Bless.

My stereo is on obnoxious overdrive because there is no one here to tell me to turn it down .And here come The Angelic Upstarts following on from The Cro-mags and a heap of ELO  on an ancient  mix CD that I dug up out of the vaults and a sonic smile flutters out of the speakers and comes  to rest on my fat bitten  mouth. The weather is all grey and stompy outside throwing itself  a big old tantrum and the tacky ten dollar fan wedged in the clutter ( 3 bullets from a machine gun,earplugs,a grip of bass picks bearing my ex’s name,a baby pink porcelain deer,a Rolling Stones postcard sent to me from the road on a long ago lonesome tour, a set of knuckle dusters bearing the words “Love” and  “Hate” in 2 inch cursive letters…) on my bedside table is beating the heavy dragon blood scented air like it owes it money. Graciously reclining under a lurid polyester canopy of  highly flammable flower fairy lights,stolen setlists and ever present longing I write to you.

Can I tell just you? May I share? It’s all enough to get an urban goddess all verklempt.

Lord! It’s all I can do to even reach down and turn this thing on (“That’s what she said….”) I bumble about in my sinking ship of a brain with a leaking bucket in one callused paw and the other hand usually down my hot-pants.Literally.They are terry toweling and bright yellow with mean black racing stripes stitched down the sides.My ass looks like a bumblebee.Trust me,it’s most fetching…. Moi? I tend to over think pretty much everything until it up and flat out combusts in a shower of red glitter,diamond encrusted butt plugs,playing cards and pug puppies and then distills down to some kind of noxious meaty smelling syrup that trickles out of my ears and stains the pillowcases purple while I am fretfully sleeping.

I ponder upon how fickle and changeable our desires tend to be and how we are made to pay so dearly for them. (“Girl.you just said a mouthful! Sing on!”) That it is never the right person at what we deem to be the right time and how much damage ensues from the fact. That it can all be snuffed out in a cruel unforgiving  instant and as all of us know,you can never really go back, not when you know and believe what you do after the fall.

We rewrite ourselves just so we can keep going. See me?  Over here ding-dong. I’m the one holding the .45 to Hope’s throbbing  panicked temple as the siren’s whoop and wail outside turning it into a bonafide event .She is shaking at a  vibration so high that causes dogs to howl aggrieved a mile away and her eyelids are fluttering over grape green eyes that suck the will to power clean outta me. Faced with my seething homicidal anger,lost longings and dull silver hand cannon she has understandably wet herself and the diaphanous dress in which she is clad has stuck to her tinder-stick legs like a mummy’s bandage. The air reeks of vinegar and sulfur and no one is gonna make it out of this five star fiasco alive.I am a brute,a cad,a realist and oh how my trigger finger doth itch. But will the second bullet in the chamber be for me?

Go on with your bad selves and tell me do my fellow fuck-wits.Can any of us truly live without Hope?

Hope,all 96 pounds of her soaking wet,utterly consumes all of us fallible fools. She is a glutton. She takes all. A locust. Those skinny bitches always have the best metabolisms.( ” I just can’t seem to gain a pound!” she tittered before I garroted her with a piano wire…) Vile creatures. Brutal bitches. I’m calling it as I see it, damn the torpedoes and that is if we are not pining we are pined for. Need ,Hope’s younger delinquent cousin, also an ice cream blond for the record, is bare faced and shocking in her pathos and dire hunger.The kid is a fucking car crash. She is best kept hidden in the crawlspace of your baser emotions,trust me on this one,you won’t regret it. I need you to know that I tell you this for your own good.She will have you shanghaied before you can blink and call uncle. She will get you into bocoo trouble baby.Pull her canine teeth with pliers as soon as you sedate her lest she up’s and chews  her way clean  through those restraints you got there when she comes to and she will be swinging. Don’t mention it De nada hombre,you can thank me later. Cash only.

We all go in with the best of intentions thinking that we,with our sausage fingers and shortsightedness can handle what ever is to be dished out. Klutzes one and all. (“Way to go banana heels!”) No one ever wants to think about the sunset and tear stained ending as inevitable as they are. Of course we fucking don’t! Are you shitting me? Where is the fun and frolic in that Debbie Downer? Shut up! The deal here is that we all want to be the Victor to the spoils do we not? Now,if you say no? Sweetheart ? Angel? You ain’t nothing but a bold faced liar.

Now get your sex appeal over here,park it real hot and close and kiss me like you mean it …..

When I am loved I tend to view the other party with sticky suspicion and then pity. I see myself as so fatally flawed and corrupt that I question anyone’s sanity who declares  their troth to me. I tend to put he-who-hauls-my-ashes on a pedestal. In a recent conversation with my my wise and muy adored big brother he told me to relax and not put cock on a pedestal “That’s not where I was planning on putting it!” I texed back lightning fast and imagined him rolling his eyes. But I want to be wanted! Oh Elvis on your opiate drenched rhinestone cloud chariot how I want to be wanted! I want my bits blitzed. My junk jangled. Listen up and listen real good dirt bags,I may be a lieutenant now but beneath this ribcage of chalk and malicious marrow beats the stoic heart of a grunt. I am naught but a simple animal and there in lies the rub. A ditch digger with delusions of grandeur.

Desire I can understand because it is immediate and oh so gratifying. When I know I am desired? Woo-wee!  I become the erect nippled Forth of July.Bang! I roll like a Rockefeller. The dogs pant at my feet. (“Daddy digs you baby.You can exhale now.”)  But Love? Love utterly terrifies me.Always has and I have no doubt always will, no quarter. I think that I have suffered from Philophobia my whole life. I could be the fucking poster child for it.I was told that it is OK to trust someone,to let them in. No. No it’s fucking not.Why hand a thief the keys if you will? Here’s a shovel,now can you dig it?

This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.

Indifference is sexy why? I will tell you why. It’s because we all want to win,to turn the tide in our lust laden favor.We all want the sugar dusted attention. (“Next time don’t be so fuckin’ eager!”)  I ran into one of my stunning satellite girlfriends last night that I only see on rare and precious occasions. Six sweet feet of corseted flawless cafe creme skin and miles of flaming red curls.She is an utter goddess and has always been so. She recently escaped from a hammer horror scripted relationship and her sad fable lead me to much pondering….the nice guys in my life and yes ,I have a few don’t look so god damned surprised, have always hung their super-smart heads heads at my ,at times, ridiculous choices in paramours and rightfully so. I will be the first one to admit that I have dated some real clangers.Kissed a fair few frogs if you catch my drift and I know that y’all do. My love life is asinine.These magnificent men of mine never fail to ask me why I don’t go out with,quote un-quote, “Nice guys.”

Oh my sides!…..

Listen up haircut and listen good ’cause I ain’t gonna say this but once… You comfy? Let’s begin then….

The reason women such as myself,women who I like to say are blessed with a case of terminal uniqueness (Thank you for that description Miss Corey Parks. ) end up with the cream of the curdled crop because for one, nice boys don’t play rock and roll ( Merci beaucoup Rose Tattoo) and secondly they never approach women like us. Ever. The amount of super sweet lads who have become dear to me over the years and then admitted to me in some blighted tequila propelled moment that they always had a “Thing” for me but where to afraid to tell me could make up a pretty nifty chorus line of pre-empted imagined rejection. They then proceed to vomit on my shoes and cry. It hacks me right off.Both the technicolor yawn and the undeclared affection. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get barf off suede boots? Didn’t think so….The cool guys?  My pin-up’s and crank case crushes? Oh-ho! Let’s take a look see in my Crystal ball shall we? Come closer,I don’t bite ‘less I want to rattle your bones bay-bee….Check it out now…The cool guys are shacked up with interchangeable little voiced nothings, flimsy chicky babes of no spine or substance, baby incubators and bubble brains. Gah!  These boychiks, they put themselves down,settle for second best and avoid us amicable alpha amazon types. Meanwhile, back in the jungle,( “Yey! New York Dolls!”)  we are stuck in our huts on a Friday night while the fat chicks get fucked in the bushes by the fire after the feast is done wondering if we smell bad or something and voila! Out come the wolves.

“Attention! Attention please! Paging every juicer,felon and bong jockey,please step forward to the yellow line,I repeat,please step forward….”

We then proceed to stay with aforementioned wolf because our self esteem is so mangled from years of wondering why no one digs on our fine asses. This is a true story. This is my motherfucking life.

The  lads that I tend to lust over and that in turn fuel my moist lace clad nocturnal fantasy hours are usually certifiable, incarcerated or married to mewing milksops. Or all three. All the same thing really. Then we have The Lads who pursue me only to quit with the foxy texts and adored attention as soon as I reciprocate their level of lust. Sue me but I want the kind of combat fucking that leads to fingerprint bruises in vivid constellations to be found in odd places.Suck it up but I won’t be happy till I am peeing what looks like diluted cranberry juice for two days after the event and walking with a limp. There are certain precious times in a young vixens life when she wants to crap calligraphy. Deal with it sunshine. Don’t you go and  threaten me with a good time and then make a run for the border,you get back here now solider! You hear me?? . My stellar advice ? Don’t let your mouth write cheques that your ass can’t cash.  I guess it’s just me and my trusty vibrator then kids (“Hi-ho,hi-ho,it’s off to work we go…”) because getting back to Hope swooning in my slippery gun toting pee stained grasp, it is all too much for a romantic’s hollow heart to bear and survive….

And me having the distinction of being permanently locked in at the romantically retarded age of 17 tends not to help matters much either and that right there is a zaftig fucking understatement if ever I saw one. I am down with hickeys (“Its not a hickey babe,its a nocturnal hematoma” ) sweaty hand holding and groping blindly in the back row of the movies.I want to get finger-banged while the previews are rolling on and on and on and ohhhhhhhh!!!!...I don’t want kids and a mortgage. Hell no. I’m like Tom Waits and The Ramones honey,I don’t wanna grow up. I want to wallow in  moist anticipation and stress for days about what I am going to wear on a date and then turn up an hour early.Yoink!  I tend to think it’s because I didn’t have the high school experience when it comes to this shit. Which may also explain why I wore a Catholic school sports uniform out last night with high heeled boots. Or not. Who knows?  But my hair was fierce. Just sayin’….

You have no idea how long it takes to shave these stems. My cross to bear….

My desire is blunt force trauma equipped with talented tongues and hot tattooed hands.I want to fog the windows,condensation dripping down the panes ,down my thighs and make out for Black Sabbath saturated days. The Phone? Fuck the phone and its link to reality.Phone is off the hook comprende? You get a gold star if you can make me beg for it, my make up smeared to porno panda bear proportions ,drooling, I’m down on my knees. It’s naked and raw. It wants to chain you to the radiator pipe in the bathroom,sustain you on cherry pop tarts,Cuban cigars and orgasms.You unleashed the Kracken and now you don’t know what to do with it ?? (“And that’s what you get for fucking around with Samurai’s! Now go home to your mother!) I have worn off a fucking finger print wanking over you and now you decide you can’t handle it???  Now?? Maybe I sent too many raunchy photos? Who can say? All’s I know is that I just can’t seem win…..

The accompanying song for this dispatch is “Born to lose” by The Heartbreakers. Enjoy.

Life is so long (To be said with a bored French accent while smoking a filter-less Gitane. Beret ,lying down in World War Two,existentialism and stinky cheese optional . ) and the want-er and the wanted never seem to fall in sync. (” ‘Ow you say? Bummer in zee summer? Oui? “)  It should be like roommates who get their periods at the same time. That would be peachy.It  would be so great being that you would both be in the right place at the right time because then no one would get hurt. You can’t lie if you don’t feel it because if you do you will end up resenting the other party and that is not the correct outcome if you ever really cared and I know that you did…..You can’t disrespect what you were or what you had like that because it’s just not fair. Sad,soul destroying and so shittily true. Once the thrill is gone as my beloved BB King would croon,it’s pretty much sayonara sunshine. And it sucks.It sucks because you have to hurt someone that you probably still have many wild and wonderful feels for but alas,not the right ones.

( Sigh.)

It’s like kicking a puppy through a window pane in front of a class of autistic preschoolers after telling them they were going to get a puppet show. It’s fucking horrendous on every level for all involved.

(It’s my life and its ending with every breath….)

I can hear them running up the stairs hindered by their heavy Teflon riot gear. Clumsy armor.Upright badge bearing roaches sent for my head to be brought back on a moral stick.I ponder the acoustic tiles set in the ceiling and then focus my attention upon the wraith cradled in my arms.We look like some kind of fucked up Pietia. With my forearm I gently wipe the beads of sweat from her clammy brow,not wanting to let go of her or my gun .Her eyes flutter open and smile into mine. She curls closer to me and sighs deeply as the battering ram pounds against the locked door making it expand and retract like a wooden lung.We should have done this hours ago.She hauls herself up my side and I can feel her tender lips work their cunning way along the throbbing artery in my neck. She nibbles on my ear like an canape.I shiver.

I turn my face down towards hers,my long dark hair drowning us both like oil. I pull her in anaconda tight .Such 11th hour tenderness but ain’t that always the way?  Our lips lock. Our  tongues ever so briefly hesitate and then touch bringing sighs and electricity.The battering ram becoming more urgent and insistent.We regretfully and only momentarily break the connection to decide the conclusion.

“Death by cop?” I ask as she licks a tear that I was unaware of shedding from my cheek. “Death by cop” she whispers agreeing with the only way out that will redeem us both. The only exit. Our mouths lock once more for the road .Blind,consumed with nothing but Hope, I raise my gun to the door as it splinters apart and steadily, methodically begin squeezing out round after holy round.

They graciously return the ballistic welcome wagon.

I can taste forever.