There's a Party at Your House, part 1.

Someone must have broken the window from the inside, the shattered glass lies delicately frosted on the concrete outside your house.

You stand and watch the red lights of the cab drive away from your front gate, leaving you unprepared for the party you didn’t even know was happening. Not only is it two in the morning, but you’re hardly dressed for the occasion either. You’re still in your work shirt and have got blackcurrant cordial and sambuca splashed down your jeans. But you smell like them. You smell of alcohol and a little bit of vomit, both sour.

The front door is open. Not wide open, but ajar enough for the music to seep out. Rave music, or house music, or trance music. It eats away at your ears as soon as you hear it properly, bite by bite by bite from the living room with each thump from the bass speaker.

The light shades in the hallway and living room have been covered with newspaper so everything is several shades darker, and someone pushes past you and knocks it with their outstretched hand, so everyone’s shadows jump and leer at you.

The sofas in the living room have been pushed back and the TV has been covered with a blanket. The air is thick with the smell of cigarettes. Dog ends overflow from an empty tin of chopped tomatoes. You bend over to pick it up and notice that a dried crimson scum is still congealed around the top.

There is a dark, ambiguous stain on the grey carpet and someone wretches into a bucket.

Everyone is attached in twos or threes, grinding to the music, arms slung around each other’s necks, synchronised.

Empty bottles of alcohol are lined militarily up on window sills, the labels facing dead straight. Empty cans litter the floor where a pyramid fell.

You feel separated from everyone, because you’re not drunk and because you are alone. No one comes near you, no one is greeting you. Nobody has missed you and the party is alive without you. It hits you that you are not important and that the size of the moon outside is bigger than any of this. You are so insignificant.

Task 30

I saw you in here, all the time, alone.
Sometimes I was alone too, or with friends.
Eye contact lingered; the seeds had been sown.
The isolation this romance all mends.
But now you're here with this other girl.
You're smiling and she's smiling, but I frown
As all my notions rapidly unfurl;
What I thought was true is flipped upside down.

But whatever, I don't care, your moustache
Looks like it's been drawn on with crayons and
I hope she gives you some foul itching rash
When you take her tenderly by the hand.
I wanted someone lonely just like me
To pat me on the head, say I'm pretty.

Fingers, part 2.

It’s a natural mutation, he said. Shit happens, nature can be cruel. It’s part of what makes me unique, and now I don’t even notice it.

Do you notice it yet? Shine your torch a little to the left. It’s on a sheet of last week’s sport with the cheap gold band still gripping to the ragged sinews. The nail is perhaps protruding as the cuticle peels back.

Don’t look so horrified, I told you- you’re late.

Uniqueness? I said to him that it had to go.

He laughed until I got out the chisel.

I made him put his left hand flat against the table top, then bam.

He collapsed on the floorboards howling. In pain, not forgiveness. He should have been thanking me for setting him free.

You’ll find him in the corner, the chisel still in place. No finger prints on it, mind, I remembered the latex gloves. Watch out for those nice shoes, blood stains you know.

Yeah, you can see him now.

Don’t rush, you might startle him. Steady, steady.You look onto the pale skin, vulnerable and soft. The scruff of black hair, matting slightly around his sticky crimson ears. His eyes, so blue, so soft. You could probably fall in love with him, that’d be a story to tell wouldn’t it?

I tossed him aside, nothing more than a big meaty rag doll. I told you, it’s your fault. You’re late.

Why don’t you count his fingers, curled into fists at his chest?

This is where you can write ‘motive’ in your note book. That’s right, he still has ten. The sixth on the left never really belonged to him. But, and this is the only thing we have in common, I was too late to save him too.

Fingers, part 1.

You're later than I expected.

Marching in, in those clicking heels and that sharp jacket, like you own the place. But you’re too nicely dressed for a sergeant, you should be right up there at the top, I’m not joking. Has anyone ever told you that you could be a model? Seriously, you’ve got the cheekbones. And the thighs, I bet.

But whatever, you’re late to my party.

Come on in anyway. This is the hall, but hang on to your jacket. I know it’s dark but I had to knock out the electrics, and it’s nice and cosy now, especially in a big old loft like this. Daddy’s pride and joy gone all art school boho cool? I don’t buy into it either, just a drop out and a coke head. I did the whole family a favour. When you go around the corner, the impact of the place will really hit you. Mostly, it’ll be the smell. A tissue over your face, you’ll want to tread carefully, with the bleach I threw everywhere eating at the membranes of your nose. Yum yum.

The blood smelt so sickly and so sweet that I had to do something to cover the stench.

It’s still dark so you can only vaguely make out the piles of books and tubes of acrylics and a few sheets of old newspaper. Dust is swirling in the shafts of light from where I broke the window. Obviously not much of a cleaner.

My Mouth

My mouth is a washing machine that is leaking again.
The inner cogs and machinations are all turning,
But out of sync and at their own free will and
Froth and scum is pouring out

And it goes on and on and on, I can't stop
The churning, the creation
Of the inconvenient waterfall, the cascades
Of humiliation, the torrents of my speech.

"The old girl has finally snapped,"
They mutter, a hand on my shaking shoulder,
And then I'm taken away
To sit in a quiet corner.