Imagine you are on a train and I am talking at you in a manic manner whilst checking my phone
It seems to me when I’m shy, I’m shy… and I’m caught
Between states where I earn and I don’t earn
And you have to justify it
Bitch, don’t kill my vibe and I might consider smiling
On photo-booth: need to look poor but intellectual
I got no cigarettes so this is getting harder
Someone to avoid for the foreseeable future and also right now – in this present moment –
Feel like no one likes me
Calculate your self – worth on a wheel and divide it by a thousand
I mean, no one on the bus knows me either so this is how I know I might be overthinking –
Man of means
Means
by no means
Standard funding app falling foul of social stereotypes
soda-water-and-lime or chai-latte in Starbucks
You can’t manufacture a miracle and I’m a perpetrator – basically
Get on the bus again and head is full of boss
Shooting up on my screen
Easily micromanaging inappropriate emotional scenarios in exchange for pay
The scenarios are indicative of wider social anxiety,
If you are poor you are jealous, if you are rich you are entitled and you lack empathy
And if you are middle class no one wants to write articles about you because you are
Fucking Dull
When I start to panic I generally go to McDonalds and observe everything whilst eating a McFlurry and mozzarella sticks
no judgement please
The family next to me stare and the girl calls me a scary white lady
Shit when did it get back to THIS… or am I that complacent
it never really LEFT this – idiot
think in McDonalds they turn on the air con to try and make you leave after 8pm
an unfair tactic, am a paying customer and I am sitting here thinking
When am I going to have my J K Rowling moment?
Not everyone can think up Harry Potter, but come on, must be somewhere close
We like tacky stuff. Embody Rihanna. Go on, you can do it. Separate your feelings from your life, don’t be invisible. Pink nails and running shoes. I’m always hungry after I get laid and Kate’s always hungry when drunk so we leave her bait to stop her eating our lunches in the night-time. Showing off love bites while we watch The Shipping News starring Kevin Spacey- gestures of disobedience and emancipation.
In the street
at the station wave of anger at sunglasses caught in wave of fringe just rip them out hair is too thick anyway and thickness, as we know – not the one
in any sense
anyway
make sense please
Of all the classic Disney stories – fuck knows why I am so depressed and talking to you over whiskey just read my book all week and actually don’t want to socialise and then I think God – do I just not LIKE PEOPLE, he fed her food and then I went all psycho// very good at giving people SMALL amounts of information and they think they have the full story just like tax evasion there’s a knack to it and it means you are in possession of a higher level of intelligence// actually you two have more than two brain cells so you aren’t going to fall for that.
Deep trash –
They were three ninety nine from a guy people call the looky-looky man outside south ken –
Snapped in my bag 2 weeks later
You can have my heart but pleaseeeee just leave me alone
Permanent underlying concern
Unless, on
That particular day,
You are fine with knock off
Because
Three ninety nine is just about within budget for eye wear and
That particular,
Just off-
Hippy blue glare
Helps with the heat of a Monday morning and the spectre of Katie Hopkins leering at you from the face of The Sun widely spreading her racial hate and probably her legs
don’t care if she is utilising a generation obsessed with hating ON someONE she is basically a Nazi and if we go down this route
you know
people start sighing, sweating and fidgeting about over their cappuccino
fuck man, don’t make it this heeeavvvvyyyy
And
you know what…swallowed: caffeine and sense of self.
getting really good at not noticing
Alien growing inside of me right I mean its hair first then a really strange small nail and then it all forms into a person, I mean no thanks. Think you may have got a baby confused with a tumour. Used to tie a rope around my sister when she was little and pull it as hard as I could until she was sick.
I’ve got a question
What makes you cry?
Because I haven’t seen any water in the corner of
Your eyes
For years, my dear
Now I’m just watching others
She –laughed when I told her this and said well yeah its true
We chat about death over Tuna pasta with Olives and Ice Cream the problem is the human rights act – and what that means for disability stickers e.g – might not have a sticker or a right anymore but I’ll be allowed to apply for loads of jobs that I can’t do and I’ll have to do tests to prove it – I’ll be sad if you improve your three legged table by the time I come over for dinner next you so suit being teenage //
// what is this glamorous dysfunction this is someone’s life which yeah
is ‘glamorous and dysfunctional’
My gran was room temperature when she died and some days I wake up and look at the sky and feel like an insignificant spec because it is so huge but I take a decision to be a little bit excited every day or I just think; whatever I do it doesn’t fucking matter and everyone should just shut up and eat their apples.
You, mate, should not EVER write a self-help book.
On Debenhams:
Things have escalated from a conversation I had with my supervisor to the whole of management thinking I want to sleep with all of them and that I have a list of who I prefer. THE STORE MANAGER KNOWS I THINK HE IS A SILVER FOX. You can imagine how red my face is consistently going. This has been going on for a couple of weeks. The store manager also knows I’d rather get my bum hole licked by the sales support manager, rather than get fingered by the other 60 year old manager named Bob.
Musing on The election news – sorry, can’t be avoided,
Seeing as we are now all royally and pleasurelessly fucked and the Royals are also expanding and popping them out which is not making our lives easier-
Patriotism, conservatism and solipsistic anxiety/ apathy is rife and Plan C are plan C’ing around talking about accelerated capitalist realism and intersectionality
Which is not a word
Microsoft word recognises
And that is all very well and good and valid but I want to talk about the table leg in more detail instead
Table leg regularly falls off leaving three legs on the table in our house and last night I put a plate of curry on the table and the table leg predictably fell off and the curry went all over the floor and the table leg and I cleaned up the curry, washed the table leg in the sink and then popped it back in place and put another useless screw in to hold it for another couple of weeks
Live in a property perfect for the young professional according to legislation that outlines what acceptable housing is –
The table leg is a quirky talking point and the option to eliminate quirky talking points just got a hell of a lot harder in terms of housing, and a hell of a lot easier in terms of creativity – we’ve lost so much to another five years of this shit and –
Overwhelming hit of perfume when boarding bus number four of the day
Look left – Chinese woman in full length Hijab looking twitchy so everyone else is
Looking twitchy
She abruptly changes seats and I flinch and then I look left
Guide dog
Guide dog moves
So does woman in more panicked fashion than before
Scared of dogs
Not into bombs
Overhear photojournalism style and what would you charge and have you paid for the flights
watch braying bicycle flaunting yuppies cascade down the road like an attractive river
everything you need for summer, sunshine included
you can’t shove all the poor people in one small space and then expect them to keep it nice
nice
to see you though
All of us on a Birthday she moved to Hawaii and I cooked a chilli. Sent a parcel labelled; Plaque. Open it. What is it. A sign that says; Mermaids are Welcome. Have you ever liked mermaids? No.
Of all of the serial killers I always liked Aileen Wuronous the best – I mean, she didn’t have a hope from the start. Lived in the woods, raped by brother, friends, customers, loses it, kills 7 men, state of Florida declares her sane and kills her after cashing in on docu-drama potential and Charlize Theron gives the performance of a lifetime.
On the phone to my mother talking to her about being a single mother she used the phrase totally ostracised no one helped me, she said, except other people on the fringes of everything and they were having a harder time than I was and also, weren’t much help more of a distraction.
It’s easier to get done by a pretty woman than an ugly man sorry Katie
I’m stealing again
Klepto
I’ll definitely, definitely keep in touch.
Emily Pope
Emily Pope is an artist and writer based in London. Her practice explores the potential of socio-political feminised monologues and how these function within contemporary media. Recent shows include: Prism2 at Toast Gallery Manchester, SOTD X STCFTHOTS at Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Leeds, Weekend at Milcote House, Elephant and Castle, All The Fun of The Fair at A-Side/B-Side Gallery, Hackney. She recently graduated from The School of the Damned an artist-led alternative MA programme in London. Emily has worked closely with The Midas Touch curatorial project in Luton, and was the arts coordinator of the East London Fawcett team, who produced the London Art Audit research in 2012. She is currently on the Masters writing programme at the Royal College of Art.
Feature Image Courtesy of Author
CuratingtheContemporary (CtC) 
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