The noise a whistling kettle makes

I sighed that sound, but there wasn’t the release promised by my mechanical counterparts. Just a deeper sense of acknowledgement of a need for release. I have no interest in spiralling out of control, that self-indulgent firework display is for the amateurs. You know, to take my mind off things, I read a few of your poems, and I just found myself wondering where the human-beings fall to next. Fingers slipping into panties amidst twaddle and rhyme. There’s that whistling kettle again. I wonder what the world looks like to you? Do you look? Or do you write words in your head and then project them on to everything you see. Lazy, predictable words.

Let me shuffle up close to you and reassure you of your depth. I can’t wait for the fucking anthology. And yes, yes. You read me quite well; I’m just taking things out on you. Just earlier today I had to ask myself if “If you carry on looking at her like that I’ll restructure your jaw” was a deserved response to someone oggling my wife. I’m still not sure, but there is a difference between admiring someone and looking at them as if they’re meat. I do hope you don’t do that, but I won’t sit here and pretend that I didn’t use to, and maybe I should cut everyone some slack.

I’m a recovering alcoholic drinking a beer, after a beer. Perhaps two. Maybe three. So don’t think for a second I’ve wandered over here to pull any highground. There’s no sense of superiority. I just wanted this to be something, that if read fast enough, would just be the noise a whistling kettle makes.

So strange how we dance backwards with such little effort to that which took so much goddamn strength to leave, but it is different this time. I know. I just said that. Insert laughing emoji. No, seriously. It is different. I have these spells you see. They’re usually brought on from external factors from what I can tell. The results of mistakes, usually. Not necessarily selfish mistakes like the old days, more often just mistakes. It’s better to realise you came through the wrong door than spend far too much of your time in the wrong room. The Russians across the hallway are arguing. It sounds devastating. Much more devastating than this silence and large saucepan on the floor in the middle of the room.

There was something about tonight. Something about sitting and preparing the fresh fish for the dogs, and mixing it with freshly cooked rice. It would have been strange to do all of that feeling like this. So i merely boiled the fish, drained off the water, removed the christmas tree of bones from the inside of each fish and then put the saucepan on the floor. The rice is still on the stove, cold now.

I wonder how you’re reading this. I wonder how I’m writing this. To be honest, I didn’t know what else to do. Writing is like a meditative state, but a bad meditation. It draws us into ourselves and then back out again, but without the release that comes from something like a long run or a fight, let’s say.  

Just so you know “erotic poetry’ is just another way of saying ‘bad writing’ and it has always been this way. The only person who ever wrote sexually and didn’t shit themselves while doing so was Miller, and none of you are Miller, so you can stop.

I almost typed out “I wonder how I became so disgruntled” and then I realised that I’d only need to sift back through my catalogue of ‘poetry’ or whatever you call it, to face the sad realisation that it has always been a theme. I’m not sure which is worse: Being perpetually miserable, or being stupid enough to think that it just reached its zenith now. That sound that a whistling kettle makes. I’ve been that my whole adult life.

How do you make a different sound? How do you move amongst it all and feel different? Tell me. I don’t want to be full-blown retarded. I don’t want to be sitting here at 12am to type some shit out about slipping hands down panties or polysylabbic onanism.  I’d like to stumble around, clear headed, and be able to hear the birds or the sound of the waves doing what waves do. But my attention isn’t drawn to that, even though it’s so close.

When I was a kid I cried at the scene in The Never Ending Story when Atreyu’s horse sinks to death in the swamp. I remember it going on for so long. So much empathy and pain. Watching it at nearly 40, the only thing I could feel was disappointment that it didn’t take long enough. It was a few seconds at best. And by now, how many things have I watched drown to death in the swamp. In fact, the only part of that film that resonates with me now is the quote “Sometimes I’m scared the nothing will win.”

But, my love, that is a whole other rant that I am defintely avoiding right now. Spoiler alert: The nothing is doing damn fucking well. I smile a little smile as a parent walking down the hallway with their kid shushes their little one. The microdose of respect for anyone who might be burnt-out and suffering. Anyone who might need a deep breath. A break. A moment in which everything is peaceful. Hell, he’ll never fix it all by himself, but he’s trying not to make it worse, and that’s all it takes.