Birds fly together and I’m alone. Getting skinnier and skinnier . Black coffee stains on my face, I’m sure of it. I check my phone and there are no messages.

I haven’t been able to write, and what the fuck am I without- don’t lean on door. Fucking on oblong objects like freaks or aliens- fucking on subway platforms like pigeons with tumours on their feet. Fucking in toilets that smell like toilets. Fucking and fucking fucking. Lean on door.

The truth is I have not been fucking. Not even leaning. I am two feet on solid ground without any lift or sway. Fingers on book pages with no words. If I stumbled I’d fall, I’m sure of it. She does not move.

Depression, of course, as if I had to name the- comes at me- fangs- little fluffy cat claws- stupidly adorable- yummy yummy. I get eaten. Skinnier and skinnier. Symptoms of a runner.

My ankle snaps. My back breaks. Fucking like I’m a spider with a massive fucking disease.

The girl with a dick so useless she might as well not even have it.

And on Delancey street-Essex street she checks her Feeld notifications for her fix- hair stubble on her hands from shaving them the night before. Skinnier and skinnier.

Hot guy with green hair looks at her on the subway and she almost drowns in them feelings that completely destroys her. Shaven head freshly dyed and perfect. New York has many beautiful sights but he is better than the Chrysler building. She begs for him. Most girls beg for him, she thinks. Most guys beg for him, she thinks.

Fucking on the subway while everyone looks down at their phone games. Level 43 is real tough. Blocks connecting with other blocks.

All we are looking for is connection. No, fuck that. She’s looking for-

-herself.

remember to take off your backpack before having sex. It may get in the way of the riding.

she’s soaked, god bless her.

Screaming. Coming. Yearning.

she’s in her bathtub yelling affirmations.

Mirror of water that lets her see inside of herself. Curtains of hair on her forehead as she moves her hands to the heavens- these hands are being guided by angels, she says it out loud in her old drama teachers voice.

Elephant feet, she screams it. She’s alone in the house, of course.

Fucking herself is the only fucking she knows. Hands gripped where hands need to be gripped. Hips. Elbows. Buttcheeks. The triangle bit above the cock. The droop on the belly. The hands of angels guiding her.

But all she can think about is her friends. And she’s meant to be fucking. And when you’re fucking it’s not ideal to be thinking about your friends.

If I get boobs, you can touch them. I promise.

She’s breathless, poor bitch. She’s fucked, I’m sure of it.

Of course, if it hasn’t been obvious-

That bitch is me.

Don’t ask me why I always run from the good people, from the good things.

She’s figuring it out. Fuck you for knowing the answers to the questions she is still figuring out.

Aren’t you fucking unreal. Some ride too I bet. Whatever go and fuck yourself and have the best orgasm of your life why don’t you. Fuck you.

yes, she’s unwell. She needs help. She’s getting some. Medicate that bitch, they all say. Send her to the hospital. Fuck she keeps getting skinnier and skinnier.

Why hasn’t she been calling her friends? Isn’t that obvious.

She’d rather be dea-

I’m sorry this had to be the way you remember her. But she needs you to know that she’s trying.

She really is.

As much as it hurts to scream, she’s been doing it more.

She’s been eating more.

She’s been breathing more.

She’s going through some stuff right now.

Bear with her and please try not to hate her for it.

The symptoms of a runner.

Put ice packs on her as she heals.

Deep breathes.

She is sorry.

She is trying her best.

I choke my coffee cup in my arms and slug it back like I’m competing in a contest to see who can obliterate their coffee the fastest. I stick my head underneath the stairs and pull out old shit that doesn’t belong to me- the spores of mildew speckle as the landlord fixes new bulbs to old lights. He asks what happened to the bed frame and from the hole under the stairs I rise with a slat from what was once a bed and hold it up high, and even though we have just met, we laugh like we’ve been friends forever.

I have been helping my friend Kyle move house and the antibacterial juice lingers on my hands. We swing open the storage unit and look at the stuff we have amassed- a whole lifetime of stuff, everything we have come to own while living in London. 5 years of our lives. We heave the last of it in, a few yellow moving bags worth of a life.

On our way to the new place we sit in silence on the tube, scratching our sunburned elbows and flicking through videos on our phones. We are guests today on a new line, and it will become a line we learn well. But for now, in the bittersweet movements of a new chapter we pay no attention to the stops and we take the time to breath-

-and we breathe out like we are full of toxins.

The bird flaps her small wings through the pale blue sky, and the music that would play would be something that would play for the ending music for a coming of age story. When she finally rests on the petrol station rooftop she feels a rush of emotion come over her- a familiar rush nevertheless- as always- unwavering- sadness.

Underneath her talons they fill up their cars. She watches them wistfully, god she thinks, I IF I COULD PUMP MYSELF FULL OF THAT SHIT THEN MAYBE I COULD GO AND GO AND GO AND NEVER HAVE TO FEEL LIKE THIS!

I cry when stars explode and I don’t even look up at the sky. The way I say things to make no sense sometimes. But, I don’t know how else to properly explain it. The utter crush of the heart. When the stampede killed Mufasa.

I twist and turn on my blowup bed in a new room that feels lonely and I can’t sleep. I reach for my phone and start to watch videos where I dance wearing a bra and a wig. It makes me feel all types of things- crazy types of things-

-and she jumps from the petrol station.

FUCK THE WIND FEELS SO GOOD ON MY FEATHERS.

She has spent her whole life going from rooftop to rooftop, but it’s when she is in flight like that, that’s when she’s at her most-

-she’s beautiful I think to myself as I watch myself dancing in a bra and a wig.

I don’t know what else to say. So, I repeat what I just said.

She’s beautiful-

-if only I could be.

I switch the light on and I watch as she wails and kicks her small feet up into the air. She looks like a fish splashing in a bucket. I take her into my arms and I rock her from side to side. She sucks on her thumb and I try and hold my eyes open so I don’t fall asleep.

‘You know, I was small like you’, I say to her. A tiny fart. That was a long time ago mind, ha. I was born in New York, you won’t know of it, but we will take you when you’re older. It’s full of big buildings, with so many noises that I’m sure you’d love. She looks at me as I am rambling and she’s listening like nobody has ever listened before. Absolutely listening. ‘My mom used to hold me’, I say to her. ‘Just like the way I’m holding you now’.

I put her back down and into her cot and I walk slowly as if to not stir her from her sleep. I stand still in the hallway and I have to reach my hand towards the hall from stopping falling- how a feeling can be so strong it’s physical. I take a deep breath-

-I breath out like there are toxins inside of me.

I stumble back into my room and I fold the covers around myself.

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She fucks me up the ass and I scream for more of it- KEEP FUCKING. KEEP PUSHING. KEEP. KEEP. KEEP. KEEP. KEEP. ME. PLEASE. AND. NEVER. LET. ME. GO.

They all discard me like I am a piece of rubbish in their pockets. What’s wrong with me? Do I have large stickers on my chest and ass and cheeks and nose and smile and fingers and eyes and neck that say ‘YOU CAN FUCK ME AND LOVE ME, BUT DON’T FORGET TO BIN ME AFTERWARDS’.

I ask her to get off so I can have some coffee and she says, ‘It’s 4am’. And I look at her like she’s the fucking nuts one.

I put the pod into the machine and click large cup and I wait. What a beautiful fucking- life.

My daughter will not end up like me.

My daughter will not end up like me.

My daughter will not end up like me.

The bird jumps from the rooftop and flaps it’s wings like it is made of more than just feathers and bones and guts and-

-and it breathes out all the toxins.

She is beautiful-

I wish I could be.

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I climb back into bed with coffee stains on my lips and she kisses me like I’ve come back from the war.

I hold her close to me.

I reposition my wig. I readjust my bra.

And I bend over.

And I catch myself in the mirror-

She’s beautiful-

-if only I could be.

‘My mom used to hold me too’ I tell her. ‘I need you to promise me something Poppy, don’t end up like me, okay?’

She doesn’t understand yet the weight of what I am asking her. I want her to feel beautiful without questioning it. I want her to fly like a bird. I need her to not feel the sadness I feel.

The sun spills onto the buildings like a gauche painting.

The doctor takes me around the back and asks me to unzip my pants, and I do of course. My legs are pink at the knees and milky white elsewhere, I look like one of them lollipop ice creams you can buy for cheap in Tesco. The doctor examines me, his eyes pinched to a focus as he circles his neck. It cricks and cracks and I swear it makes so many noises I start to think that he’s got a rock stuck between his shoulder blades. What the fuck is he doing, I think to myself as I stand nude in the back office like a pornstar in a casting video. Should I get on my knees and suck his-

“Everything looks good”, he says.

Click, clack/ My eyes are made of wax/ The computer screen invites me/ The words do not excite me. Fuck my life.

The doctor grabs the inside of his bottom lip and pulls hard down on the skin inside of it. He rips his mouth off of his face and I can see all his lower teeth now. The blood pools to the floor like the tiredness of runners at the end of a marathon. He sticks his long unclipped nails into his eyes and scrapes at them- motherfucker, I think. Why’s he got to go and do that while I’m still nude. My willy is scared that even it looks away.

Hinge notifications from gay girls in/ North London/ How many people can I fit in/ Sex Gundam.

Now look, I say, tucking my willy back into my jocks. This is no time for all that. He chews on one of his eyeballs like a cat playing with a mouse- the veins like tails.

“I’m gonna go”, I say.

I stare down the receptionist and say: Your man’s a nutter.

Eyes like one’s I’ve seen before stare down at my chest. She’s like a fucking BIG CAT. A what do ya call that again. I take her hips like they are the poles of the tube pulling into Euston. Jesus love, I say in me head. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Not noticing that the roles have changed and I’m the BIG CAT now. Jesus love, I tell myself. I’m loopy. I’m spooky. I’m a BIG CAT in a room I don’t know with a hinge date that has eyes like one’s I’ve seen before.

I want to go to the corner shop and buy some cans/ but I don’t think It would fix me/ It’s not the same when you use your own hands/ don’t be filthy…

…I was talking about sex.

I put on my new pink wig and dance around the room like I’m in a badly made music video. It whooshes in the air and over my eyes as I jump. I feel-

FUCK ME LIKE I’M NOTHING. Who da fuck said dat.

To be real though- I think I like how I look. This is new. I went shopping for makeup with my friend Amrita last week. I got foundation, powder, brushes, blush, and sparkly lip gloss. She taught me how to do it all properly, and that she’d FaceTime me if I needed any help.

The baby cries. The baby doesn’t understand why yet. The tears are real. My mom flicks the light on and picks me up and into her arms. Hush, she says. She stops the baby from crying.

The baby doesn’t know it, but in 29 years it’s going to be typing a Substack on the internet about sex, and doctors that chew on their own eyes. It’s fucking poetic really, if the baby only knew. Poor fucking sack of-

Shower water in my eyes as she turns her head and greets me/ the water is fucking hot/ the baby cries all night even though it’s sleepy/trying to rock the fucking cot/ the acid lines of my stomach begin to crack and break/ the baby kicks and screams and the ground begins to shake/ in their mother’s arms the baby does not cry/ everything looks good is such a fucking lie

So, as you can see Ceilbí uses a rhyming motif through their substack piece here to indicate how much fucking hurt they are in. Or something like that. The teacher addresses the class of the future.

One child raises their hand and says: I don’t think it’s because they are in pain. I mean, they most probably are, who isn’t. But, I think it’s more than that. Like, for example when they talk about the doctor scratching at his eyes with long unclipped fingernails, maybe they are trying to examine the absurdities of a life that feels programmed. A life that feels off kilter, and of course, we all feel like that. Yanno what I mean. A life that feels not like one you’re living in, and more like one that lives in you. I’m probably saying that all wrong, but I don’t think they are in fucking pain or whatever. No. It’s more than that.

The teacher nods their head.

Ceilbí once wrote, “FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. I’M A BIG CAT.” And unfortunately, it’s with great sadness that we have to report on their-

Hold on.

Wait there, one second.

I’m thinking.

Fuck.

Hookups for breakfast/ I’m about to come/ Look up and break fast/ here it c o m e s

I was in a car crash when I was a baby. I was in the car with my mom and my aunt. The car got totalled and we neatly died. The paramedics quickly rushed me to the nearest hospital. When my mom woke up she had no idea where I was, or if I was alive.

I don’t remember it, of course, but I think about it a lot. It’s so unreal to me that sometimes I wonder if I did die. Like, how could I ever know. I suppose I’m here now so that crushes that theory. But, it’s weird. I was only 6 months old, and if the metal of the car squished in just a few more inches or in a different way- I wouldn’t be here.

We are all so close to not being here every day. That scares me, even if some people say it’s like beautiful or whatever. All it does is scare me. My writing is kind of about that- almost being here, almost not. Like, the margins of it. Life. I can’t explain why these thoughts come into my head. Woven into words like spiders weaving temporary homes- traps.

I check my phone and there are no messages, and it occurs to me that perhaps life stalls for a few moments every so often, to allow us to heal? And one day, someday in the future, for all of us, it won’t stop and we won’t get the time to heal, and we will break.

I fold the sheets and rearrange the couch in which I have been sleeping on. The long green mirror captures me decently- pointed shoulders, sulky eyes, and legs that look like they were made to be put on a chicken’s body.

There are no messages on my phone.

She snaps the lighter, holding the fag between her teeth. As she does this I turn to look at the bus pulling up to the stop nearby, the chicken shop across the street with bright lights, and the security guard bowing his head at us. My eyes finally come to rest on her. She looks down as she smokes, playing with the heel of her boots. When her eyes meet mine I swear it feels like cymbals crashing.

“What?”, She says, half smiling.

“Nothing” I sheepishly bite my lip and turn away.

We walk holding hands. Am I remembering that correctly? Wait, were we holding hands? I feel like we were. She had dark blue nail polish and rings with cameos on them of people that looked like queens and princesses. We were walking to Euston station, and I remember our arms moving up and down to match the pace in which we were walking. We didn’t want to miss the train. She stopped and she looked at me and I remember that.

I stuck the pump in the blow up mattress and waited for it to get firm.

I want so badly for romance but all I have are the dirty socks beside my head as I try and sleep in a room that is not mine. Kyle brings me home a large soda and I sit up and ask him about his day. He nods, not really answering the question. He eats a burger on his bed and I can see the dark sky start to brighten behind him.

She stopped and she looked at me. I remember that. We were holding hands. The bus pulled into the stop nearby. Her head was down while she smoked. She was playing with the heel of her boot.

I spoon butter onto my dry pasta. I don’t even want to talk about food. I drink black tea and try and forget about the hunger calling out from inside of me.

I’m almost 30 and I feel like I have accomplished nothing. I hang another Labubu on my bag and I walk around the city in an attempt to stop my mind from breaking. My feet have blisters, I’ve been doing 30,000 steps a day. Going nowhere.

I scream now with words hoping that you’ll be able to hear me all the way from where you are.

The hot water of the shower frames our love like it’s meant to be something greater than it is. Your hands grab my hips and my chin cuts over your shoulder. Your hourglass body makes my boyish body look even more flat and skinny than it really is. With locks of your hair in my fist I turn your head upwards and kiss you. I can’t explain what it’s like with words, but if I had to try and describe it I’d say it was like a train derailing and catching fire. And the people don’t wake up after the crash. Everyone on the train dies.

She wiped the water that had gotten into her eyes and she looked at me with wide eyes. I remember that.

Our daughter kicks her feet as I push her on the swing. I squint at the waves in the distance, they’re wild and noisy in the dramatic Irish weather. I slow the swing by gripping hard on the chains. It’s time to go home before it starts pelting down.

The car drive is familiar, we used to come to this beach when I was younger. Rossbeigh beach. I remember listening to Punkrocker with my sister and singing all the words like they meant something to us. But now, the car is quiet as the rain starts to get heavier. Our daughter is asleep in the back, and I feel a tightness in my chest as I look in the car mirror back at her- my heart beats unlike it did before her.

We called her Poppy. She looked like her mom, but she had my eyes.

When we passed through Kilorglin it felt cold. My nan used to live here, but she didn’t live long enough to see her. I thought about pulling in to the estate where she used to live, but seeing it after all this time would be sad. I remember her sitting down peeling spuds and saying ‘Never visit my grave. All I’ll be are bones rotting”.

Poppy looks like her.

I pulled the car into the driveway and we both sat for a moment in silence looking back at her. It didn’t feel real-

The old man put out the cigarette he was smoking, and raised his hands up and closed the window shut. I watched even after he vanished out of sight, until all that I could see was the dark glass and the cherry blossom leaves falling slow beside it.

The leaves move now like sooth sprites- darting up and down like they’ve no intention of ever stopping. I wish you were here to witness them.

She stopped and she looked at me.

I’m still wondering what she saw.

New teeth push out of sore gums as I swig Monster Energy Drink around my mouth like medical mouthwash. I spike my hair in the mirror with old putty and squeeze my body in godly unatural shapes. I decide to swallow and stick my tongue out to look at the bumps on it- I admire the putrid reflection of my sugar damaged mouth.

My mam asks me to stay still while she presses the ‘capture a picture’ button on FaceTime. I do a fake smile.

one.two.three

Holy fuck I swear there’s a big bit of snot stuck in my belly like, a massive stinking thing, a fucking ugly rotten snail of a snot, oh Jesus fuck- oh you’d be awful impressed. Like mud on the bottom of my shoes kind of snot. FUCKING MUST BE. FUCKING ONLY THING THAT’S EVER MADE SENSE TO-

‘She’s like a ten…but I’m counting to like a hundred though’, he says with a dry pasta stain on the sides of his lips. I shake my head and say something like ‘that’s way too high a scale’.

ten.eleven.twelve.

I wipe the tears off the ground with the sleeve of my sweater. I feel elongated after the late night pushups. I hit my bed like a fish hitting hot oil. I don’t fall asleep fast, in-fact it takes me hours to finally drift off, in-fact it takes forever, in-fact fuck what I’M TELLING YOU- NONE OF THIS IS REAL YOU FUC-

‘I don’t know’, I sigh. My mam is wondering why she can’t see the button to flip her camera. I tell her it’s the one with the arrows. ‘What arrows- there’s no arrows- oh I see them now- wait- is it the arrows at the top- or- is that an arrow- oh there’. She wants to show me the dogs. They pout at the camera as if they might be given a treat. I smile at them. Even the dogs are starting to look unfamiliar.

Fiftytwo.Fiftythree.fiftyfour.

‘Body is an easy forthy nine. To be fair’, he says.

So I goes I do to the doctor and ask their professional advice. I point at my ribs like they are the carcass of a small chicken and I say ‘Does this sickly pain that weaves between the bones inside of me ever g’way?’. The doctor looks at me like I’m a spare tool. And they simply say:

‘Fuck’d if I know.’

I am dust covered, like an old piece of furniture. Does any of this make sense to you because it makes so much sense to me and like maybe I’m going fucking crazy and like maybe I have already gone too far over the line and it’s too late for me and I’m fucked and I have wasted every good thing that ever came my way and fucked up everyone around me like for real for real for sure for like real though and what if I pictured myself as a pencil my whole life but really i’m just an eraser who just smudges other people off the sheet and maybe I’m overthinking all of-

Eighty.Eightyone.Eightytwo.

A bogey, yeah. Like right there, next to me lungs. Fucking fat one. Like a frog yanno. Big boy. Snot like. Course it’s inside there. What else could it be? Anyway, I wasn’t asking for your opinion on what’s inside my body actually. No, I don’t want to hear about- listen just pay attention and lock in for 2 seconds- glare deeply at the appalling state of me and know that this is all kept together by bones, water, organs, and most importantly snot- Okay, well obviously don’t look at me like th-

The hotline is busy. I take the knife to my belt and puncture another new hole. If these pants get any smaller I’ll have to-

9 minutes 22 seconds. And her voice stops and I am alone again. I think about calling Kyle and telling him about the new game trailer I saw and that it looks like it’s going to be such a fun game. But, I don’t.

It would be a shame to quit now when I am so fucking close to a hundred.

Ninety eight. Ninety Nine.

‘What’s wrong with-’, He says.

‘I dunno how to ans-’, I stutter.

‘You’ve just been sitting there in sil-’, He says, concerned.

Rotten silence.

It was long.

Wide.

Like sad music.

Like a snot stuck in your body.

Like when your mam’s voice disappears.

Like washing dust from your face and not being pleased with what is underneath.

I won’t lie these past few have been tough- my arms are stinging.

onehun…

Bones. Water. Organs. Snot. Oh, to be so lucky.

…dred.

I stab my own sword through my chest- squeezing through the layers of skin. The tip reaches the other side and I can’t help but smile as I stagger to hold my weight. There is a reckoning inside of me that I must witness. I rub tired palms on dry eyes as mascara smudges under wrinkled lids, and my feet start to give away.

The memories are but crystals in carpet cleaner- waiting to be vacuumed up. Lost.

She sends me a drawing on picto-chat- I look at her from across the schoolyard. We are allowed toys today and of course everyone has brought their DS to school. Mine is a white DS Lite.

I looked at her across the schoolyard for such a length of time that I started to decompose. I’m sure of it.

The spots on my face are growing at such an accelerated rate that they are starting to resemble a John Carpenter monster. As this fever dream pain expels from my innards and make’s a new home on my god ugly face I sense a lightness wash over me.

She swings her sword (DS stylus).

The blood roars as I push the handle of the sword further into my chest.

-the chewing gum in a pack of stickers- my nan’s laugh- Mars Delight chocolate bars-

I stumble.

She is all I see.

She slices down on the screen-

But she is long gone.

I am alone when I finally fall to the floor. I’m sure this is how I die.

I miss, dearly, the darkness from when I was not here. The cold and unflattering thoughts that keep me awake at night- like pincers-

I grab the handle of the sword. Fuck it. Like they do in the movies. Here goes nothing.

I pull hard- and the sword flings out from my chest and clinks onto the floor.

There is a hole that stretches from one side of me to the other-

I am decomposing.

And I wait…

for a picto-chat…

from a girl that never even existed in the first place…

but one day…

when she’s ready…

She will draw her sword…

and strike.

I scratch at my spots as I tumble in bed at night- thinking about her-

wondering when-

wondering how-

a boy decomposes-

and a girl forms.

A man on the bus scratches his wet foot with his uncut nails as I put my earphones on. I kick my feet on the back of the chair in front of me like a school child as I sulk with my hood up, doing everything possible to drown the shapes of a world that keeps on moving when I would rather it stop.

Camden looks like a moulding scab as the bus pulls up, and it makes me want to hold my nose and spit on the floor. There’s a sweet petrichor as I thank the driver and step out into the cold November evening. I’m on my way to finish an application for another residency- the creative equivalent of farting in someone’s mouth during sex.

The coffee smacks against my lips like a familiar lover. I gasp and sigh and shake. O, bright star of disappointment, would you ever fuck off, I say to myself as I begin to fill in the next block of text. ‘How would this opportunity help with your…’ I want to die in some kind of intense car accident.

The devil pushes against my ass like a warm throbbing thing- and he says ‘It’s been a while, hasn’t it?’ and I nod my head and squeeze my lips together as if to say ‘Ya, it has been’. He sits with me as I write, and he comforts me. He tells me that it’s going to be okay, and he tells me a story about when he was little.

It was one of those uneventful days when not even the bees buzzed. I was maybe 6, he says, taking pauses in between sentences to sip on his hot coffee. Doesn’t matter, anyway. I was out in the field chasing moths. I have always loved how their wings flapped and that they had hairy bodies, much like the way my dad looked when he wore shorts. I wasn’t looking where I was going, and I fell. Hit my head on a large rock. Warm blood spilled from an opening in the top of my skull. The moths had gone, and I was left alone. I had to get 33 stitches. He smiled at me.

“That’s a story about me”, I said.

“And you survived that, didn’t ya?” He smirked.

I had managed to confabulate my way through the google form- my eyes blistering. The devil said his goodbyes, and soon enough, it was only me in the cafe.

I wasn’t chasing moths. I was playing by the mound in the estate. The one that separated Kerrin’s Park and Ballyvally. Gavin was digging through the dirt, and I was waiting at the bottom, too afraid to climb up. He grabbed an old slate from the roof of a house, and he flung it down. It hit me and sliced the top of my head open. I should have died, but I didn’t.

I fear I insight a sadness.

My muddy pants scratch against my legs as I walk towards the bus.

I get down on my knees.

Briefly, I was beautiful.

But now I’m healing.

One stitch at a time.

I slug back my blueberry electrolyte can to soften the sandy texture of the protein. My teeth are pulsing from the run- and I stick my thumb against them to try and sooth them. The scratchy red nail varnish on my finger nails looks like dried blood. The lights from the Everyman Cinema dampen my white skin in an orange glow- making me more desirable. I notice the chinks in my body as I stare at myself in the reflections of the bus-stop glass. A sad excuse of a body.

I run up the stairs of my flat like I’m the off-spring of a god. I kick off my shoes and I get undressed in the dark hallway. The knob on the shower is broken and I have to use a can opener to turn the screw. The harsh fluorescent glimmer of the bathroom mirror- one of them fancy one’s that have inbuilt led strips- batters against my porcelain skin.

I bring the can of blueberry electrolytes into the shower with me- I’m still thirsty. My phone is playing music- sitting face up on my damp jocks- the landing page of Enya’s Spotify. Her sweet songs reverberating- hitting off the tiles on the wall. The water is hot and it makes my skin go peach coloured- and when I squirt the Lynx 3in1 on my face it feels like the juice of an orange bursting and attacking- cold and brutal.

My body is barely dry as I get down on my play-matt in my room to do more push-ups. I pin crazed eyes forward and I dream of getting better- but every time I look at the curves- wave pools- mountains- dips- they lure me into a frantic woe. I do 20 pushups and I come to my senses.

I shove cake off-cuts into my gob so fast I think I might choke. The ooze of frosting, the plash of jam, and the refrigerated hard bite of the Victoria Sponge. It makes me dizzy- when I eat it feels like I’m a rockstar jumping off the stage into a pile of hard rocks. But still, I can’t deny that I did a good job baking this cake.

Declining, I try and avoid the pang of the mirror, and so when I wash my hands I look at the drabs of blue toothpaste becoming solid on the sink. I swoosh the medicinal mouth rinse I got in the pharmacy around my mouth for 2 minutes- the insides of my mouth are butchered and soon I will lose all my teeth. I flex my muscles in the mirror, forgetting about my rule, and I notice a sincere sadness in the way I look at myself.

When Sylvia Plath baked cakes did she often think about death. When she made eggs in the morning for Ted, did she think about how it would feel- to be swept gently out of her body and to be washed away of the scabs. When she turned on the gas, did she think about her kids- ‘death must be so beautiful'.

I watched YouTube clips and suffocated myself under heavy sheets- my phone buzzing- my eyes glistening- my ears full of wax. I picked at the hairs in my nose and I pinched them with my fingers and tried pulling out as many as I could. I held my phone close to my eyes- my glasses useless on the floor. I wanted to reach in and touch the words- to hold the love in my hands like it was a newborn.

I spent time researching the difference between MiniDV, Betamax, Hi8, Tapes and Laserdisc- getting lost down rabbit holes of old video cameras. Then I thought about making a video game- to be a solo game dev- I watched 2 minutes of a YouTube video on how to use Unreal Engine and I decided that I couldn't be bothered. Suddenly, I was on the Steam Store looking for games to play- none of them standing out. I wanted to play games from my childhood but I wasn't in the mood to set up an emulator and go through all that hassle.

I landed on the season finale of season 8 of Rick and Morty. I wrestled my head on the pillow and I let the colours of the telly hit my eyes like they were old-time spirits.

The protein builds in my gut like a monster- feeding my addiction.

And the truth is, as the darkness engulfs my room, and as I turn my laptop off- I’m hungry- but it hurts to eat.

I scamper into my kitchen like a fucking rat- I take the tuba-ware of leftover cake- I nibble on it like it’s crack- my body spasms- my eyes twitch- fuck, it makes me wicked- it grows inside of me- it hurls me across the floor- it fractures like the light pinging off a disco ball- it takes everything from me- and it does it so well.

Is this body destined to grow hard like the blue toothpaste stuck to the basin of my sink? I heave with all might, swallowing the sick in my mouth.

I reach at the warm fuzz of my phone screen- the messages coming in like angels dropping from clouds- the way my fingers look like flitting eels as they press letters- and the way that my face cracks- and my lips twinge- as I smile.

When I eat it’s like someone turning the gas on- and it’s not like I can see it- but I can feel it happening- entering my body like a stranger taking my youth.

But, I will still sneak into my own kitchen and eat the leftovers of a cake I baked for myself. And tomorrow, I will go to Planet Organic and buy another protein bar and it will add to the other’s inside my gut- and they will pile up and grow- and I will run until I heave over- with sick at the back of my throat.

I remember the sausage and potato dishes, the beetroot pasta, and the takeaway pizza we used to have while watching X-Factor. The dented tin full of biscuits being passed around like the collections at church- always being told to take another.

But most of all, I remember the orange seeds.

When I was younger I used to spit them out onto my hands and collect them. I kept the seeds in a small wooden box in my room that I hid under my bed. And every night I would eat one. Stay with me. I thought that if I ate enough of them I would grow oranges on my body. I know how it sounds.

I have always hated my body. I was a chubby teenager with short stumpy legs. My face was so fat that it looked like I shoved a tennis ball in my mouth. I have always had struggles with eating. I starved myself so much that I used to only drink black coffee for weeks. I was born to be a ballerina - perfect ridged feet.

I wanted to be a girl. And maybe the oranges would grow out from my chest like boobs if I ate the seeds. It was silly, I know that, but I would’ve done anything- I was young, and I was scared.

I was 8 when I thought about dying. It didn’t make me sad though- it was like the crush of waves- bubbling at the top of a Fanta bottle- fresh soil- geese catching flight- every wonderful thing-

Nan looked at me with such disdain that I thought she might throw the pot of boiling water over me. Fuck off you little cunt, she spat the ash of the cigarette as she said it.

I salivated at the last slice of pizza hanging in grease on the cardboard box. It was Judge’s Houses with the Over 25’s, and Louis Walsh was wearing a flesh coloured flowery shirt.

Spiders were surely fucking inside me. Tarantula orgies. Spider dicks hanging crazy off the edge of my brain. How else do you explain this mania? One minute I was whizzing through the stratosphere, squeezing my fat together to pretend I had real tits. And then in another flash, I would think about how much it would cost to buy a big knife that I could carve my skin with.

I stopped eating orange seeds. I never grew orange boobs.

I was 27 laying on a random bed in New York City, like a starfish. I hadn’t eaten in 3 months. I had all the mirrors covered in bath towels. I got up and I walked to the bodega. I bought a Peanut Butter Snickers and I ate it quickly. Something wasn’t right inside of me. But it was starting to clear.

The spiders cuddled close between the different parts of my brain. They turned nose to nose (now you’re picturing a spider with a nose- fucking things of nightmares). They had never quite been in love like this before.

At the end of the day, when spiders are fucking around inside of your head- it’s worth noting that perhaps some of them love each other.

My nails were yellow as I pinched the seeds out of the orange slices. I swallowed them all in one gulp. This time it will work. This time it will make everything better.

The spider saunters into my room wearing lingerie, and I bite down hard on my thumb. I pull at the skin on my chest to try and make it poke out as much as it can- but it never does. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

The spider was 8 when it thought about dying. But it didn’t feel sad-

The spider’s nan looked at me and told me to fuck off, 8 cigarettes in her 8 hands.

There were hundreds of me inside the spiders brain fucking each other.

Ceilbí touched Ceilbí’s chest. Their heartbeat was fast. They turned nose to nose (now you’re imagining me with a nose- what a fucking nightmare). And they told each other they were in love.

I opened my mouth and the spider fed me an orange seed.

Fuck, right there, that’s the spot. This will make it all better.

The orange seed was 8 when it thought about dying.

The orange seed was 12 when it knew it wasn’t a boy.

Wait, I’m getting all confused.

Something isn’t right.

It’s not fucking working.

She took the boiling pot off the stove and she drained the water by holding the lid to the side. She cut off some butter and added it in and asked me to mash it up. She looked at me like she knew what was wrong with me. But she never said anything.

I was 28 when my nan died.

Sometimes I am sure she could sense it- something growing inside of me-

I used to eat orange seeds when I was younger.

And inside of me they grew.

And as the spiders fucked my mind. The orange seeds were changing me.

I can still smell the butter soaking into the potatoes- the smoke of the cigarette- the oil stains hanging from the ceilings-

I was 8 when I thought about dying.

I was 12 when I figured out why.

I was 18 when I decided to live.

I was 28 when my nan died.

One day the spiders will stop fucking.

But for now…

…it’s worth noting that perhaps some of them love each other.

Their uncle owned the farm. He had a thick Kerry accent and I never knew what he was saying. He looked like the insides of a food bin, spikes growing from his grey beard like a diseased animal. He moved through the dark of the farm with his walking stick snapping down on small branches- the spread of the moon falling generously on his boil covered nose. On a good day he would chuckle and his teeth would stand up like soldiers. But most days, he would hang his head low, with his paddy cap covering most, if not all, of his features.

She was in her 30’s, with sagging tired eyes that made her look more closer to 60. I always sensed a terrible sadness within her- like how a hen must feel when she senses a dead chick inside an unhatched egg. It was as if something wanted to burst out from underneath her skin- but it never did. He was in his mid 30s, a stout belly and a face much like them that you see on the posters of canned potato adverts.

In his porch light you could see the panic of rain, falling so heavy that it could’ve been mistaken for hurdled rocks. He spat on the mud, his cheeks were like the flapping of a balloon being blown up by tired lungs. We had takeaway pizza in the car, and the headlights shone on the farm as we turned the corner- I looked at him on the stoop. The wretched hell dragging his feet to a standstill.

The rain fell hard on the cardboard pizza box as I held it above my head. And I nodded my head at him as he stared at me- and I was sure that he was trying to suck my soul out of my body. I stood in the hallway, combing my hand through sobbing wet hair, looking at him from the window.

I heard that he died a few years ago- and his nephew and niece still work on the farm. Sometimes it scares me to think of the repetition of their day- the way it wouldn’t ever change. The glaring image of her eyes- the leak of sadness in them. And in the dark of night they walk home from the farm alone, and they reach into the cold fridge and pick the icicles off the milk.

I look now at the cold coffee in my cup, and I think about drinking it, knowing full well that I will spit it back out. The reflection in my open window of myself- reaching for cold coffee-

I step with it in my hand towards the draft that spills in. The people in the pub next door are laughing loudly, and the noise is like a made up language. All twirling together like nonsense. I let the wind caress my chest, and I take it all in. I don’t have a fucking clue what I am trying to write, I think to myself. It’s like there’s a demon inside of my body who steals all my words. I’m sure of that. I lift the cup to my lips and I take a small sip. It’s cold and you can taste the oat milk starting to curdle. But I don’t spit it out.

I look at my phone and I read their messages again- and I look at the flash of light coming from my laptop screen- I haven’t been this happy in a very long time. I can feel the glue start to weaken inside of me- the sticky blobs that have caused this fracture- this void- this mound- this blockade- this tunnel of sadness. It starts to wash away.

There are those that do not look up at the sky when it rains- but I do.

I spend the next few hours standing by the window- and a part of me hopes that my laptop will run out of battery. The last of the glue starts to melt and a small tear falls down my cheek. If the sadness inside of me could speak, mine would sing.

I remember how sad she looked, the way she froze in the middle of the road, and the way she looked through us. I know what that feels like. I hope she finds what I found.

Someone to melt the glue that keeps the pain inside of you.

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