like a kiss

What if I just kissed you?
Threw caution to the wind like mist,
you took my breath away like being underwater does.
London peppers my shoulders like glitter
My rib cage gets bigger just to breathe more of you in,
and I’m dizzy from the way you smell in the moonlight.

Did I say too much when I stuck you to the roof of my mouth with chewing gum?
Giving the game away,
my eyes bigger than my stomach
and a heart somewhere in between
I stare at the shape your silhouette cut out of the night.

Oceans pool in the gaps between my fingers
As I swim to you;
take your face between my seaweed palms
and we could make waves out of one another.

Swipe dream

When he swiped left,
he thought he knocked me sideways.
Dragged my selfie with his thumb,
and I’m gone from his screen,
gone from his dreams,
but I won’t dream of you.

With your Tinder bio filled with
humblebrags,
mumbled swag,
a fag between your teeth like you’re Tom Waits with Twitter,
except without the music
and you can’t even hold your liquor
until closing time.

Oh sorry… you vape now?
My mistake.
That’s really, truly great.
But you can blow
your candy floss,
nicotine steam
into someone else’s face,
because “I’m here for a good time not a long time”.

Let me be absolutely clear:
(though your ab pics are hard to stomach)
You’re not the only cliché here.

“You’ll find me in the library, at the theatre, or the pub”
(If you exaggerate to get a date, just come and join the club)

“Bookworm in the big city” (tell me that I’m pretty)
“Charity shopping is my life” (I want to be your wife)

Crime: Pretending to be Zooey Deschanel to have my confidence enlarged
Verdict: Unanimously and embarrassingly guilty as I’m charged

Mama

There was no spark in my eyes before you struck me against a matchbox.
All fizz and smoke,
sparkle and dark,
you lit me up.

You took your thoughts of me between your thumb and forefinger like a needle
and carefully,
warily,
daringly,
wove me together,
thread by thread by thread

You sewed me in.
Sowed me in soil with such impatience as you waited for the rains:
“This child will move mountains with my blood inside her veins”

If Icarus was a woman

How was the fall?
You were larger than life when you fell
Just to make me feel small.
Small like a second ticked on a clock,
Smallness my weapon that dropped like a rock
From such heights I never could reach
Such heights I never could seek
Such bright, bright lights.

Icarus; falling.
Bawling.
Trawling for ways to fall with grace,
how to save face,
how to make space,
how to make waves in haste,
get a taste of fame,
get back in the game
and be the man that leapt and fell,
not the woman, kept and felled.

Where there’s a wool, there’s a way

This summer took a lot out of me. Acne-ridden and anaemic, I fell in love with both strangers and myself, watched my sister get married, discovered the ingenuity of nipple covers and spent more time dancing than I did asleep (you’d be surprised how many of those events happened simultaneously).

I’d like to compare this summer to a hurricane to demonstrate the sheer movement of it all, the devastation, the magnitude. And, although an amply chaotic simile, I realised whilst sleeplessly watching the sunrise from my doorstep: it’s me who is the force of nature.

I am invincible. I am loving every second of this. Who said millennials don’t have their lives together? I look great in this halter-neck. I really gave that guy a piece of my mind. I won’t take anyone’s shit. Why did I ever feel scared? I feel great. This feels great.

And it did feel great… until I got glandular fever and then everything felt much more swollen (aka significantly less great than before). Literally who knew a person had so many glands? As the reality of my status as an evidently non-goddess-like being came crashing down on me, it’s safe to say I was inconsolable. The world doesn’t look so pretty after being knocked from a high horse made predominantly of tequila-induced arrogance – and I learned that the hard way.

What gives? I thought I was invincible? I thought I was being rewarded for my pains by becoming halter-neck-rocking-heartbreaker for evermore? No one mentioned any obligatory inflammation as part of the deal. I want a do-over!

Yet, the engorged tonsils festering in the pharynx of this indignant white girl wronged by the world and the Epstein-Barr virus ensured that none did ever hear these shrill lamentations. Alas indeed.

From the get-go, I can tell you that I wasn’t taking kindly to being accurately described by the term ‘glandular’. Not only because this is possibly one of the most horrendous words to globule its way into the English language, but also because a number of things change when good glands GO BAD…

give me dancing

take me dancing before I trip over my own feet
I’m not sure if you’re ready for me, if I’m ready for you;
if I’m ready for two,
ready to rattle your cage like I know what I’m doing,
just play the music and you’ll see how I’m moving.

but let’s go dancing.

let’s suck salt and lime between our gums
let’s take it with us
all sweat and drums.

we don’t have to touch, but for our eyelashes,
our hands don’t have to brush,
just give me side glances; sly passes.

breath on my neck as I’m spinning,
deep in my chest – it’s beginning.

For my future daughter

Say it loud
like a shout
like a scream,
or a doubt.

Take a breath.
Fill their dreams,
Make them burst at the seams.

Catch their eye, sip your gin
Make them stare,
Drink it in.

Wear red lipstick and fishnet tights.
Dance like nobody’s watching.
Cut your hair with the kitchen scissors.

Can you talk the talk?

In the same vein as my latest post which talks about how to be kind to yourself even when you’re not making any work, this post is all about ‘the hard sell’ and how to talk to other people about your work without being nauseating.

I’m all for kindness to self right now; my focus is sharpening back onto myself and my work after my six-month hiatus from anything strictly ‘writer-y’ (which you can read about here if you haven’t already). As I enter back into the plunge pool of creativity (ew), I’m being reminded of what a wuss I am. This wuss-ness becomes most apparent when someone asks me how my writing is going and I am physically reduced to a blithering puddle of Martha.

I have written plays. That is plays as in the plural form of play; as in more than one play. And I don’t mean to sound cocky, but I think they’re really rather good (some of them anyway). I know this in my gut, but for some reason as soon as I have to talk to another human about my work, I am transformed to a gigantic, blushing, ridiculous slice of humble pie. I hesitate more than I say real words. I have a blog which is about pretending to be a writer instead of actually being one. I make stupid jokes until someone changes the subject.

THESE ARE ALL TERRIBLE THINGS TO DO.

Just as an initial disclaimer, this post is a classic example of “do as I say, not as I do”(like basically my entire blog) as I perhaps need this advice more than most of you reading this. So, how do you talk about your work without sounding like a douchebag or a wimp? I literally have no idea, but I imagine the following pointers are helpful:

Not writing, not writing, still not writing etc.

Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in; a hopelessly absent blogger looking for more attention from strangers on the Internet after a 6 month hiatus.

(BTW that’s me and I would really appreciate your rekindled adoration if you can possibly find it in your hearts to ignore the inexcusable amount of time I have not been around/cracking jokes/filling the blogosphere with joyous and relatable content. Also if you could turn on the adoration ASAP without asking too many questions that would be really great for me.)

It turns out this university lark is a lot more time-consuming than expected and my entire existence is made up of reading books, thinking/talking/writing about books, despairing about how good said books are and having existentialist crises about how I’ll never write anything as good (repeat to fade). I’m learning a lot, but simultaneously writing very little. In fact, this is the first thing I have penned this year which (hopefully) doesn’t take the form of a 4,000 word essay.

I thought to kickstart my glorious return as a classic comeback kid, I would write something about not writing and all the various feelings which come from being a non-writer.

Oxford University Reject

Hi, my name’s Martha and I’m an Oxford University Reject. 

I hope you read the first sentence of this post in a proud, ‘owning it’ voice and not a breathy, defeated one, because that is certainly the spirit in which it was intended. Maybe I should release an audio book to prevent any further confusion…

It’s taken me three years to move from whiney, deflated Oxford reject to strong independent reject who don’t need no Oxford! That’s your cue to burst into spontaneous applause – gosh I’m really having to spell things out for you today.