19 December 2003
Revisited

Revisited

"So poetry, which is in Oxford made
An art, in London only is a trade."
John Dryden, Prologue to the University of Oxford (1684)

30.07.02

My McGough phase. Night fell like a thin blanket, a child's wracking cough under creaking beams. Something bars you from me.

25.09.02

Paris

ii)

The Union bar, creaking leather seats by an open door, drinking again. Miriam's keeping up with me, gazing at Sutton as he dazzles an Eastern glitter in words. I can't remember why he's there - is it the end of term, after The Troubles? Earlier, before them? A motley Union crew's already been and gone - swarthy Karim with his earnest politik, effete-effeminate Dan, Mason, bluff and round. I buy Sutton a beer, the expensive-looking bottle daubed a queasy green, and kiss his hair. It's thick and springy, like moss. Eventually, curiosity wins. I don't like the phrase or believe it applies, but we've been here all day and too drunk to fight. I shrug it off, send Miriam to the bar.

14.11.02

In the Turf. His silhouette etched, amber-embered, against the fire.

08.01.03

Pro tem

"Lead singer in a made-up band - don't you know that without them you'll manage?"
Jetplane Landing, 'The Last Thing I Should Do'

Five nights, five consecutive nights. Glassy-eyed, all of us; Emma watching Ollie watching Emily watching me. I marked her arm with chunky pink rings, and they shifted heavily when she clamped her hand to his. The next time I saw her, we passed on St Clements with new boyfriends and averted eyes.

That night he talked to me for an hour, a feat we never managed again. Playing Radiohead, all drunk and warm and slightly off-key; falling into bed, being kissed before I even reached your arms. Waking at four, we staggered down Cowley Road, his gappy grin breathing chill frosted air, stale smoke in my hair.

I moved on. You kissed me gently as Thomas Tallis rang out, as the sun rose, in a bed down Abingdon Road. The anchor didn't hold - your pale thin face, silhouetted in lime light, arching over the crowd. The small protesting squeak of leather under my embrace.

Somewhere between Ollie and James, I stopped running away. Tim asks, shy, if I'll meet him after Finals; sadness eats his smile. I don't have many friends. I brought her water, through the tears - bristle-stiff, hunched in spirit-sodden fur, we're close enough to kiss. Are you her friend? I don't know what to say.

[unfinished symphony]

07.03.03

Those last, desperate, exhilarating days. A girl with rosebud lips in summer flush, who locked eyes with me and wouldn't let go. Her silk umbrella rain-stained despite the sun, adorned with gaudy Dutch blooms, the skirts of a Russian doll. Niall, those perpetually worried quirks at the mouth, looking younger than ever, looking meaningfully at me. James came and led me out like a lost little girl; looking down his nose, deliberately casual, I missed you. I couldn't help but smile. A strand of clamped hair escaped, and, resting against him, he silently brushed it away.

21.03.03

The power in a straddled woman's no.

25.11.03

Overdressed again, in satin and furs. I responded with Wilde but forgot the words. He tried to be kind. I remember so vividly those glorious Cherwell days, joy spilling from another billet doux. O Love, love. This miraculous silver mote of light.

09.12.03

Like breaking waves, 'Idioteque' crashed through an empty bar. I stared into a darkness that said all I needed to know. She drove away, under a skewed moon.

Katie, soaked with water and wine. A holiness she declines.

Dusty * Fresh

---

But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose leaves

The way I feel today - 10 July 2004

Just seventeen - 17 March 2004

Roads to freedom - 25 February 2004

Confessions of a failed self-harmer - 25 February 2004

Manchester, united - 25 February 2004