Madly Deeply

I can’t stop laughing despite her fingers clamped over my mouth. It’s insane. I’m insane, hysterical. I’m imagining my lips are like a ziplock bag. But there’s too much stuff inside, they won’t seal and the stuff keeps pushing out in bursts and splatters through the fingers trying to keep it shut. I can’t keep it in and neither can she. And I’m close to crying, so close I can’t even tell when I’ve started sobbing. I could still be laughing, it’s anyone’s guess. It’s all the same in the end. The stuff I can’t keep in my body, the stuff pouring out of me in spasms all means the same thing. I’m out of control. It means I’ve gone crazy. Finally. At long last she’s got me there in the end: driven me and driven me for miles of months in circles until I pulled up screaming her name at this cliff edge. And now she’s given me the push. Now, finally, down I go with my arms flung out and my eyes wide open. Always open they are though, I knew this was coming. Now her fingers at my lips are trying to catch me, contain me, hold onto me, save my sanity for me until I stop laughing. But I can’t stop laughing. Can’t stop in spite of her fingers.

When I’m sick it tastes like popcorn and cabbage and red wine. It looks like sperm and the popcorn floats. She’s gone and left me to dissolve madly in the toilet by myself. Not happy with her handiwork. Not happy at all. Some people are never satisfied. Cause and effect affects everything. Some people are completely unaware of their effects. You have to show them. I’m an effect. She’s a cause. You can see how that fits together can’t you? Causality, casualty. I’m a casualty of her diffidence, her indifference, her indolence and impotence and stupefying inability. And the only word I can create for myself now is cunt. My lips form the nasty c-word as if it’s the only thing left in the universe that makes sense and I cling onto it repeatedly; and after the shouting and the banging is over again, I’m sick over again and it tastes like popcorn.

Back in the lounge and properly shaking so that I’m making the beer froth up the bottle neck. The fat foaming blobs worm out and leap to freedom, landing wetly on the persian rug one after another. It’s a chain reaction, a surreal art creation in action. Of course creative thinking is what I do best. I create all kinds of things in my head that no one else knows are in there. She’s still trying to get out. She would, too; she’d leave me to clear up her mess. Messy me. She’d leave without even looking. But my mother taught me about consequences. That’s why I’m so afraid of them! They line up and rear over me like racehorses leaving the startline and there’s so many of them and they all look the same. Dark brown. A dark brown stampede crushing the will out of me until the urge to risk recedes and I do nothing again. I feel like a marrowfat pea in a can. A dented, damaged can, my can, damaged contents, split peas. She’s a cunt and I’ve got the keys. Back in the lounge now and she’s properly shaking because she can’t leap to freedom.

In the corner of the room by the door there’s a woman. Still not my woman though. Not for want of my trying! But I think she could be. No, I think she should be. Every time I laugh she gets smaller and smaller. It’s really hard not to play with that, I can tell you! When I was still a girl I read a story about a boy who thought that when he closed his eyes, nobody could see him because he couldn’t see anybody. She must’ve read the same story. She can’t see what’s right in front of her. My fingers over her mouth now. Life is all patterns, repeating over and over and each time getting more lurid and objectionable, less and less pleasant. I’ve been well and truly fucked at her hand, but now that it’s my turn to return the favour there’s just this little insignificant woman in the corner by the door. Still.

Dilate. The song playing is Ani DiFranco's Dilate. I learn the words. Get them inside, inside out. Lust makes the pupil of the eye dilate. But fear makes it dilate more, to a shiny flat black plate swimming in the white. A good pupil fears a good teacher, just a little. It’s the educational edge. Last night I dreamed about a tabby cat and the London Underground system. Being lost in the tunnels. The map that was inaccurate, the chart that was changed by hidden hands behind the scenes and no one was told. I had to question my position continually, constantly, but each time I looked up from trudging I hadn’t moved at all. I had not changed. The train hit the cat before it went through me and off the rails into the dark. The curious cat in my dreams learned her lesson last night...but so did the train. Pupil’s not the only thing that dilates on a woman of course. Dilate means enlarge. I can hear her singing her heart out into the pillow now, I can feel it through my hand pressed between her shoulder blades. I can feel it through my fist. Feel her dilate. The song is Dilate. Why don’t you learn the words?

I can’t stop laughing despite my fingers being clamped inside her as she tries to keep me out. The pressure on the head of the piston is ultimately what creates the explosion. The piston strokes the bore. Rhythm and precision. The reaction is a given if all conditions are satisfied. The hotter and faster it gets the better the lubrication becomes, and she’s pumping the oil nicely now in spite of herself, wetting my thrusts. Compression ignition, diesel dyke, no spark required. Just the pressure, building and building against my piston. Her body is my vehicle and I’m driving, driving her hard. She’s shuddering and fighting with me but you know, I can drive anything. She’s not a name, she’s a model. She’s a cunt. Now she’s nothing but a cylinder in our four-stroke engine...and once I’ve detonated her and she’s all burned out, her valve opens and she’s exhausted on the mattress. The piston slides slowly in the bore as the vehicle comes to rest, sweet red fluid in the oil because I’ve blown something deep inside. Vibrations through my fingers clamped inside her as she tries to keep me in.

It’s insane. She’s hysterical. Some people are never satisfied. But I’m happy with my handiwork. Cause and effect, and a worthy cause at that. So deserving. I leave her to dissolve madly in the toilet, and when she’s sick I hope it tastes like just desserts. I have the keys and I can just desert any time I choose, so now down I go with my arms flung out and my eyes? My eyes are wide open.