A speech from ‘Sleet’, the fifth show in the ‘Dash Dash Dash’ series (March 2010)
To get where I am today, Gretchen and Bobbin and Timmy, I turned right at the road and over the hedge and into the field and under the bridge and along the track and down to the dark stream and up to the copse and across to the pools and over the leaves and through the bushes and into the hedges like houses and between all the reeds with edges like knives and up to the trees with black boughs bleeding and the yellowing weeds that were rotting like twigs under logs squeezing the sod like sponges the water came down my wrists and under my jacket with dozens of creatures and spiders and leeches and there were the men with their vans and their string walking the woods with hands in their coats clutching paper and wrappers and clippers and cutters and things for removing the whores and the harlots like Wendy and Charlotte who got away by the skin of their teeth from the creep who sat by the pool his dick in his hand beating the meat saying Girls why are you out in this place as the light drops through the sky and the crows settle down the rabbits retreat to their homes that don’t have windows or curtains or seats by the fire just earth and more earth and some roots and some shit by the door that’s where you belong Ruth and your friend my name isn’t Ruth so fuck off you jerk and we ran to the town down the lane to the house where we turned on the lights and looked through the drapes at the lamp in the street where a dog with three legs and a growth on his neck carried a pizza and pissed on the post while wolfing the slice including the bag then glanced at the house and his eyes both went red and the beams cut through the night and the fog and up on his legs he tore at his chest his coat fell apart like a coat on the road and out from his guts her hair all in flames stepped the girl with white lashes white brows no dots in her eyes no marks on her skin she stepped off the kerb slid past the cars and knocked on my door I’m not in I’m not in she pushed and was through in the blink of an eye she said I’ve come to stay I don’t eat I don’t sleep I said there’s no room she said who needs room she moved fast I felt sick she pushed at my breast slipped in through my chest at which point I acquired all of her charms her light and her dark her brutal disdain and Gretchen and Timmy and Bobbin you’re thinking just what did she get that was worth such a palaver my spirit my soul well to be frank I never had either so there was nothing to lose it’s not like there are insults or upsets or outcries and such like no we’re working together she lives off my fear it gives her resolve it keeps her on tiptoe she just says Why not when you can and Go on what stops you there’s no system no one is watching is there someone above you someone who’s counting or checking fuck that there’s no one there’s nothing it’s all just a story come on over it’s better you do what you want you live where you can you eat what you find you fuck if you want to there are no higher powers or despicable drives it’s just what you are so fuck all the ups and the downs you don’t have to tread like a girl on some eggs that will shatter if you don’t gaze at your shoes like some worm on a log in a wood in the winter no let’s go now you and I not like a nation ether-eyed beneath the table but striding straight to places where the pirates piss the divers decompress the gliders come to roost the motherfuckers do their mothers and me and Angelina can just come and go talking to Michael and to Joe just like citizens well not exactly so more like shadows that you pass but on close inspection they are so hard you cannot put a finger through them and crikey are they there they so much are you wonder was it me that chose to turn away rather than there being little there to see so here I am and this is me she’s in me now she’s hot against my chest or is it desperately cold she makes me grow so fast sometimes I catch her in the glass as she turns away her hair is white her brow is high she can’t go far she needs my warmth she likes to feel my blood run by her as she settles down and down and if at any point I want her out all I have to do is tear myself apart.
25.05.2010