The Hosepipe
five litres. enough to get me there, and enough left for after. the piss has already gone cold on my jeans, stinking, my legs shaking, and I tell myself it’s the winter doing it. black tobacco, the hard stench of it up my nose, the last few cigarettes, throat already raw. I crumple the packet.
The Whale
they threw money at you once, from the iced-up bow of the Mary Jane, some drunk tourist boat full of assholes with cameras, snapping away at your big, beautiful bulk sliding through the water like a blue dream on a good day when the bottle’s half-full. cameras clicking, oohs and fucking aahs, love pouring out
Inducing a Migraine
there she is behind the marked oak bar, that Irish angel with the black hair falling like midnight rain, serving up the warmest smile you ever saw, pulling a perfect pint, slow and creamy, her eyes shining like Dionysus himself in drag, pouring out the madness. red wine flowing free now, warm in the throat,
The Trader’s Bell
Maharaj and Co. General Suppliers, Established 1888. the floor, beat-to-shit planks of Canadian pine, scarred and grey as a coin worn smooth by too many hands, been there since the clippers came in heavy with tea from the east. sailors with arms like dock ropes drag crates, sweat cutting channels through the grime on their
Your Last Orbit
did you just die there in the night? I can’t hear those wild wings anymore, that frantic beating gone silent like a jazz riff cut short in some dim basement club. you were drunk on pure panic, bashing your tiny skull against the cheap IKEA lamp I got last week, that blinding circle of false
Uncle Patrick
the bar hasn’t changed, neon bleeding red down the walls, smoke hanging in the air like it’s got nowhere better to be, and I’m on the stool next to the one nobody’s sitting on, where Uncle Patrick used to park himself with a Campari glowing in his fist like something he’d cut out of himself.
Rachel Kadinsky
haze, red lips parted just enough to promise trouble, and me with my battered brass Zippo from ’86, hinge still catching like it remembered every heartbreak, grinding the wheel slow till the sooty flame whooshed up wild, orange-blue dancing the old cliche dance, kerosene stinging sweet right in the veins. she sucked hard on that
The Salty Dog
crank the burner till the flame goes that sick blue, and throw in those greasy little capers, let them jump around like drunk bastards on a hot tin roof, anchovies too, those smug salty pricks strutting like they own the pot. slice the onions thin, onions crying their cheap tears, garlic stinking up the room
Little Cathedrals
Gare de Lyon, that stupendous station, spits you out into Le Train Bleu, all that gold-plated nonsense from the old days hanging there like a drunk’s memories, chandeliers dripping light on the suckers below, paintings of green fields nobody ever worked because they were too busy screwing the maid. I’ve got a table in the
The Bank Loan
this fucking heat won’t quit, sweat pooling in every crease of this rotten carcass, another nightmare, third one this week, crawling out of the sheets like a rat with its throat cut. I can’t even remember what the dream was, just that high-pitched whine in my skull when I snapped awake, nothing else breaking the
Sitting with Diego
the morning’s got its claws in me, a hangover squatting on my brain like a fat whore who won’t leave. there’s still a little whiskey going in the blood, warm and evil, sloshing around the empty tank of me, burning sweet. we talk the usual shit about love, life, and the happiness that fucked off
Hyde Park
Hyde Park on a Sunday when the sun’s got its boot on your neck. kids on plastic scooters scraping the hot concrete like they’re trying to file the day down to nothing. bicycles with training wheels squeaking through the legs of mums and dads who just want a bench before the ice cream turns to
Takeaway Food
lovers paint hearts into the frost on windscreens, their breath fogging the glass like cheap sex in a doorway. rain comes down soft and useless on rows of scooters hunched in the alley, seats glazed with ice, waiting for some fool to chip it off with a credit card that’s already maxed out. frozen cars,
Charlotte
there I was, rattling along through the grey English drizzle, the underground train clicking under my feet, when I spotted her across the aisle — dark hair falling wild, eyes like midnight streets — and I leaned over, heart going that crazy beat, and asked if I could take her photo, just a quick one