A Collection of Men I've Fallen in Love With in London
Guy at The Roxy, leaning against the bar.
Tall, maybe even too tall. Dark hair, sharp face.
He is smiling absently to himself. I think I might approach him.
Maybe I can get him to smile at me, because of me. But I don't.
The pink light carves his image out of the dark and I am drunk.
And I am in love.
The Cinnamon Bazaar, he is our waiter. As I talk and gesture I whack him
as he comes from behind. "I'm so sorry." "It's okay, not a problem."
An accent I cannot place. We order drinks and his face has an odd quality
I cannot place. "What's your tattoo?" It's a wolf, and it's tacky.
Why I love him? I cannot say. I cannot place it.
Falafel stand, he is waiting in line. Standing there,
dark hair, face slightly scruffy. Standing. I catch his eyes a few times
and I want him to be looking at me like I am looking at him.
I want him to be like me, struck by the desire to be seen by someone
and approached by someone but I tell myself that no, he is not like me.
I convince myself that he is not actually looking at me at all, that he
is completely and utterly blind. I walk away unseen.
I am in the stalls in the darkness looking down at a man whose face I
cannot guess but whose body is stark on the stage and I follow it
religiously. It is not the man himself but it is the way he touches the
women on stage, his hands on their waists, creeping up their legs,
slowly on the beat and he dips them, rights them. I chance a touch
on my thigh, black lace stockings, but it does nothing for me.
German man at The Porcupine. He has a face made up of angles
and he leans down and into my side to whisper into my ear.
"What part of Germany is your dad from?" I couldn't say.
That I still don't know my father frightens me and he's who I see now
before me. "How old are you?" "Twenty-two." He leaves me alone after that.
I feel young. I feel fatherless.
Two separate instances. Two men, different men - I'm unsure whether they
even know one another. But to me they are the same. Darts.
The Angel. Flirting at a bar and wanting something stupid and dumb like
being fucked in a bar bathroom by a stranger. Cute stranger,
talkative stranger. The love for this one man - these two men - is
gross and makes me not recognize myself but what if this is myself?
It saddens me that some love I feel is ugly, that some love I feel makes me ugly.
Drinking a coffee, face cast downward and his breath is a cloud
around his mouth. The steam and the nighttime make me want
to follow him, walk with him, link arms and let our breaths and this
darkness swallow us like coffee. With him, in London.
Guy at The Roxy, leaning against the bar.
Tall, maybe even too tall. Dark hair, sharp face.
He is smiling absently to himself. I think I might approach him.
Maybe I can get him to smile at me, because of me. But I don't.
The pink light carves his image out of the dark and I am drunk.
And I am in love.
The Cinnamon Bazaar, he is our waiter. As I talk and gesture I whack him
as he comes from behind. "I'm so sorry." "It's okay, not a problem."
An accent I cannot place. We order drinks and his face has an odd quality
I cannot place. "What's your tattoo?" It's a wolf, and it's tacky.
Why I love him? I cannot say. I cannot place it.
Falafel stand, he is waiting in line. Standing there,
dark hair, face slightly scruffy. Standing. I catch his eyes a few times
and I want him to be looking at me like I am looking at him.
I want him to be like me, struck by the desire to be seen by someone
and approached by someone but I tell myself that no, he is not like me.
I convince myself that he is not actually looking at me at all, that he
is completely and utterly blind. I walk away unseen.
I am in the stalls in the darkness looking down at a man whose face I
cannot guess but whose body is stark on the stage and I follow it
religiously. It is not the man himself but it is the way he touches the
women on stage, his hands on their waists, creeping up their legs,
slowly on the beat and he dips them, rights them. I chance a touch
on my thigh, black lace stockings, but it does nothing for me.
German man at The Porcupine. He has a face made up of angles
and he leans down and into my side to whisper into my ear.
"What part of Germany is your dad from?" I couldn't say.
That I still don't know my father frightens me and he's who I see now
before me. "How old are you?" "Twenty-two." He leaves me alone after that.
I feel young. I feel fatherless.
Two separate instances. Two men, different men - I'm unsure whether they
even know one another. But to me they are the same. Darts.
The Angel. Flirting at a bar and wanting something stupid and dumb like
being fucked in a bar bathroom by a stranger. Cute stranger,
talkative stranger. The love for this one man - these two men - is
gross and makes me not recognize myself but what if this is myself?
It saddens me that some love I feel is ugly, that some love I feel makes me ugly.
Drinking a coffee, face cast downward and his breath is a cloud
around his mouth. The steam and the nighttime make me want
to follow him, walk with him, link arms and let our breaths and this
darkness swallow us like coffee. With him, in London.
I Saw Myself in a Window
There were some times in London when I felt so much like myself. Not in a good way.
I let myself half-believe that London was a better place, that "London me" was a better me. She would walk up and down Tottenham Court Road with her head held high.
I would like to say that it was London that made me make all those mistakes. That night at The Roxy. That night I got too drunk and got to be a little too much. All those days and nights I went off on my own. “Oh, that? That was just ‘London me.’ That wasn’t actually me. That’s not me.”
I think all of that might have been me.
"London me" was just me. Less miserable when drinking, but still miserable. Coming back to the room at night, wiping off my makeup, taking my medication. I was never so drunk as to not be aware of the thick plastic capsules, 225 mg may cause drowsiness take with food; of my shitty posture, which my sister and I both got from our father; of my eyebrows I had anxiously picked at through all of middle school, their very landscape thinned and uneven. Wiping off my makeup.
Less miserable when drinking, but still miserable. I am embarrassed at how much I cried in those three weeks, embarrassed by how many people saw. Knocking on the door, “Is everything okay?” For days after, “How are you feeling?”
I feel so much like myself.
There was a moment when I was sitting at the bookstore window, looking out at the early January evening - it might've been the second or third book of the trip at rest in my lap. Often I take myself back to that window, make sure in my mind that the light is fading outside. There were people and tall buildings and the bright halos of cars and bicycles. There was a hatch on the window that kept it locked. It was warm inside. "Why should being myself be such an awful thing? Don't be such a depressing bitch." I caught my reflection in the window, an image superimposed over the city. I didn't like what I saw.
There were some times in London when I felt so much like myself. Not in a good way.
I let myself half-believe that London was a better place, that "London me" was a better me. She would walk up and down Tottenham Court Road with her head held high.
I would like to say that it was London that made me make all those mistakes. That night at The Roxy. That night I got too drunk and got to be a little too much. All those days and nights I went off on my own. “Oh, that? That was just ‘London me.’ That wasn’t actually me. That’s not me.”
I think all of that might have been me.
"London me" was just me. Less miserable when drinking, but still miserable. Coming back to the room at night, wiping off my makeup, taking my medication. I was never so drunk as to not be aware of the thick plastic capsules, 225 mg may cause drowsiness take with food; of my shitty posture, which my sister and I both got from our father; of my eyebrows I had anxiously picked at through all of middle school, their very landscape thinned and uneven. Wiping off my makeup.
Less miserable when drinking, but still miserable. I am embarrassed at how much I cried in those three weeks, embarrassed by how many people saw. Knocking on the door, “Is everything okay?” For days after, “How are you feeling?”
I feel so much like myself.
There was a moment when I was sitting at the bookstore window, looking out at the early January evening - it might've been the second or third book of the trip at rest in my lap. Often I take myself back to that window, make sure in my mind that the light is fading outside. There were people and tall buildings and the bright halos of cars and bicycles. There was a hatch on the window that kept it locked. It was warm inside. "Why should being myself be such an awful thing? Don't be such a depressing bitch." I caught my reflection in the window, an image superimposed over the city. I didn't like what I saw.