us free

27th October 1998


You said
“i feel the sun setting on meandyou” (us too me two)
so i asked for ‘one last time’
hoped it might excite enough to make You change your mind
or at least be familiarly boring enough to make
You feel a sense of security in laying with me like we always do,
You know…meandyou.

You know… ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ kind of thing.
at least with me, it’s a cycle You know but
any tom dick and harry could be a psycho you don’t.
You know?

could be one of those put-a-half-million-pound-life-insurance-on-you-a-couple-days-prior-to-cover-‘potential health issues’-then-put-a-bullet-in-your-face-while-you’re-working-in-Selfridges
types.

or knife you thirty two times then let bbc news give me an interview at noon appealing for witnesses displaying how s**t it is to have your wife murdered by an amateur burglar,
blame an asian illegal to make it more believable and shed a crocodile tear so you can salt taste my terribly, tragic, ordeal. maybe even throw in the words ‘terrorist sect’ for extra effect.
types.

theres some sick people out there You know.

but you just lay there.
like u weren’t there
and i knew that soon as we was through we’d be through.
i didn’t want it to end, i got scared.
so i put on like i was putting it on but i slipped it off the end.
it was a dumb move, true but what can i say. You drove me. to it.
at the time, facing a life without You, i just..couldn’t do it and
i felt bad afterwards. really bad.
sometimes i think it would’ve been better left dead than naming a boy instead.
but i knew that you wouldn’t.
and i knew why cos one time you threw a book in my lap and said “read that”.
i looked at it and threw the ‘holy’ text on the bed,
yawning, eyes going right to left and said
“im too old for make believe”.
You crushed your brows down on me like “that’s blasphemy”
it’s not like i asked to be, here.
jeez.
you didn’t talk to me for a while after that.
no doubt it makes what i did worse,
now i think about it.


4th November 1998

it wasn’t just you, but the things you brought me too like,
 jealousy of the general population when i’d get you from the station
(and yes, i mean everyone - if they were in the proximity they were looking)
not at me but at your beauty, course i got a bit of attention too, albeit all by proxy.
or when i’d get ratings from people who don’t even know me
solely for the fact that you acted as a trophy
on my arm and in return i put that charm around your neck
like some kind of ‘social status pimp’ so you’d keep earnin me respect..and i’d be like.. “that’s my girl” :)
you were my party piece in “keeping up with the joneses”
they’d hack their hedges with their hoes while hating on my roses

and to be rose-less?
that’s what i’d be.
a garden gnome with no roses.
from important to impotent.
from roses (admittedly with thorns, but i loved that about You)
to no roses and no thorns.
prickless.


and maybe i couldn’t handle that.

Man.. you were mad when you found out.


26th November 1998

it had been a few weeks since,
and i had started to think that it seemed like my seed had been
cast to the wayside.
which only made me try a few more times.
“‘one last time’ only happens one last time”
You said with a smile.
like you were joking, but mostly like You liked the power You had between your knees over me.

at first when You called and told me the news, i pretended to be confused and made you say it a few times, to make you feel like i’d got one over on you.
 then you started to cry.
and ask me what you were going to do.
i kind of expected you to ask what ‘we’ were going to do after all,
i’m fifty percent of your placenta and this made us.. meandyou again…
right?

you sobbed more and more, dread began to dawn on me, and for a split second my fail-safe weapon failed me very safely and replaced victory dread who said:
“your move thornboy”.

13th June 1999

things got kinda bad leading up to it. i’d wanna do things but you weren’t really up to it,
i’d wanna go out and you’d say “maybe later”.
it was taking it’s toll on you and your features
you didn’t wanna go out of the house and soon i didn’t either.

people would ask me about you and i would say that you were fine.

they’d say that they never see you no more.
i’d say that you were tired. from the baby and all.

truthfully? i didn’t want them to see you.
you look kinda a mess right now and the look wouldn’t suit.

i tried bring you to a restaurant the other night, but you ruined it by being moody.
you’re like that a lot nowadays.

told the waiter to “f*** off” for just doing his job:
“why are you being such an idiot?!”
“me?! did you see the way he was looking at me!? actin like I’m some sort of beast cos I ordered an extra bit of food, DOESN’T HE KNOW I’M EATING FOR TWO!!?”

you shouted the last bit. so he (and everybody) could hear it.
someone else shouted “I hate waiters!”
and you nodded and smiled as if venerated, while orphaning a rib from its meat.
i had the paranoid feeling he meant “weighters”.


11th August 1999

it was hard labour for me, and for you too by the looks of it.
i held your hand like in the movies, and you said that you hated me for doing this to you.

it didn’t seem as funny as it does on tv, maybe cos on tv, they don’t really mean it.

17th August 1999

He’s cute, there’s no denying that.
sometimes i look at his helpless little face and think about how little he knows about anything.
just lying there, thinking about whatever babies think about.
why his this woman who looks like she used to be beautiful is so ugly.
on the inside and out.
why this man, who seems like a pretty cool guy despite being run down by an ex-goddess, holds him coldly at arms length teaching him to say “lonely” before his first steps.

i don’t call him by his name.
it feels weird.

i don’t think i’ve made the decision whether it’s better to get attached to him, or not.

1st September 1999

ok, it’s meandyou baby boy!  :)
the new and improved meandyou, not like the old one.
now with zero oestrogen.
tag team number one, father and son,
growin up to do man stuff.
we don’t need nobody do we baby boy?
You can rely on me to teach you everything i know,
which is not a lot, but it’s quality not quantity son,
that’s lesson number one, there for ya.
like when people say
“it’s not the size it’s what you do with it”
they’re liars, that’s only what tiny people say,
but you don’t have to know nothing bout that, look at you!
it’s the size of my little finger! and you’re like, five minutes old, so that’s pretty good.
You can tell you’re my son right? yeh, the doctor confirmed it.
i was like “but doc, don’t you have to do some kind of DNA type stuff?”
and he was like “well it’s clear from *ahem* certain genetic traits, that he’s yours sir”
You hear that? You’re making me proud already. im gonna make into a man to be proud of son.
and everywhere you go i can be like: “that’s my son”.

i raise his hand to high five me on that particularly poignant point, and his chubby digits are midgeted by my palm.

he starts to cry.

i look at this soft sack of flesh in front of me.
He puts his hand in his mouth, and spits.





i don’t think i can do this.


3rd September 1999

the idea

is what i really wanted.
but with reality confronted…
im consumed with remorse
and now, i wish i never done it.

i hate that it’s true, i hate that you don’t love me anymore
i hate that i don’t love you anymore,
and what’s worse…
i hate that i hate him too.

i hate that in another time, another place..
meandyou… youmeandhe..?
we coulda been something really great.


i wrote on a post-it note with her favourite lipstick, then i stuck it on the mirror with pritt stick to make sure it stayed.

i wonder if they’ll ever make a pritt stick for people.