I am as indestructible as they come, same as the ink on my chest, on the bone, where the scottish flower swirls up against latin words in a script unknown. I am thistle in your side, up against your back when you sleep, and no amount of rain can wash away a pain this deep. And that is what they trade in, they trade in incomplete sentences and a history that cannot be written down, just spoken, sung, spun, by mad men with red beards and anguished knees that have bent over hot coals and icy dunes, with equal measure. I’m going to tell his story, their story, make it up as I go, call this place home.
The people I write for will not read this, they sit across from me, on couches, on pool tables, in fast black cars that bump over winding roads and roundabouts and they speak my language in a bent way that bears no resemblance to what they say is the Queen’s. They yell brash, through the night, they fuck and they fight, and I say, that’s my brother there and what is that blonde doing on his lap? When I curl up at night I want his arms around me and I want you to pound whiskey and pills and go home to your wains and forget what you saw here, just go back the same.
They deal in blood here, in soppy sad tales, in funeral pyres, and dismembered males, in fields of gory washed clean by the rain, and if you asked me why I’m here, I’d tell you the same. I like it that when I cry, the sky rips open and hurls wet wintery ashes on my face, that the leaves smack against my skin and the wind gusts full blown attacks against brittle bones and sends them hurling down the street. I like that when they write they get on stage and whisper sad little embryos of words, delicately picked for their most fruitful meaning, but what I do instead is whip them all together in a frenzy and let them lick their wounds, which drip on pages, on pavements, on gold star days, names signed on pages and pages of beer soaked days. Don’t be specific, leave out street names, make the reader think you’re anywhere, everywhere, timeless and engaged. Fuck you Leith and Great Junction Street and the way that you made me laugh at midnight and curse cold toes on awkward walks home, Leven Terrace where that girl got stabbed and I answered questions, and the meadows at 3 am, when Maria chased down the boy with the bike, a punch to the head and we all said, good night. It’s not daylight, it’s dusk, always dark and that’s why they write dismal failures and they say this city is not a character, not like london, new york, or l.a., but this is the place you can always go to that will crouch around you, wrap you up, leave you shit for shinola, batter you down, with dogs and junkies, and rich girls from athens, there to take a great big pride in what cannot be torn, cannot be rectified. indestructible, impenetrable, we are built on fire and pride.
