Tag: infidelity

You

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

I missed you this weekend. I missed the feel of your pasty, doughy body curled up beside me on the crumpled sheets. Wetness between my legs, deluded dreams in my hoodwinked head. You, my inebriated trainwreck, breathing asthmatic whisky fumes, and stealing my innocence. My red lips had bled onto your cheek, seeking words, seeking I love you. But I don’t think you did.

I only wanted to see what was on the disc. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but when your father was a cheat, all men are manipulators. I am not a misandrist, but I know you have parked your car in many places. You disappeared, flew off to Dublin, left my bed cold and barren. Carelessly left this disc lying around, next to the single dirty plate beside the empty spirits glass, and the tear-stained tissue.

I didn’t know what to say, really. My tongue had cleaved to the roof of my mouth, and I felt nauseous. I don’t know why I was surprised. Fidelity was never your strongest virtue. A naked woman screamed out at me through the computer screen, poised like a seedy hooker, flesh spilling out from lacy bras and French knickers. I couldn’t hear her voice, but she was American, you said, and the silence of her dissonance screamed at me.

I am not inhibited or prudish, but I don’t want to feast my eyes on another woman’s genitals, I am not sleeping with the enemy. “Perfect pussy’ you said, and you may as well have shot arsenic arrows into my heart. You didn’t know the meaning of pain, as you never did hurt. You just went on collecting broken hearts in jars, and notches on the headboard above your bed. I still loved you.

Father

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

My father was
an accountant
Man of many vices
But he loved us
to the grave
Coffin in the flames
I waited for a phoenix to
emerge
But got Pompei

Juggling booze
and fags
and indiscretion
Libido painted
as a female fuck
Alibis weaved like
religious confessions
sliding off a
secular tongue

Thirty three years
gone by
History repeats
like an acid reflux
deja vue
And they say
my son needs
a father figure
And I say
fuck the patriarchy
I am all the man
he needs

©2020 Sarah Drury

Notions of Class

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

CAUTION: ADULT CONTENT

I had a very mixed childhood. My father, who died when I was seven, was a chartered accountant, and my mother had to do a variety of jobs to make ends meet, working her fingers to the bone. I wanted a better life, I wanted to be Middle Class. I studied at uni, wore the clothes, honed the accent, got a top notch teaching job, sang with professional choir. But mental illness got the better of me and my nicey nicey world came tumbling down. I have dropped my pretensions and am proud of my roots.

I tried to up myself
To better myself
To stick my nose in the air
I didn’t really care
Back then
About my poor, arthritic mother
Packing crisps down the factory
Or living in council shitholes
Because my mum’s wages
Were unsatisfactory
Single parent, widowed mother
One step from the shitheap
My story was just like another
And another
On our estate.

I never quite understood
The wine thing
Was it red with meat
And white with fish?
It had always been a case of
Just getting pissed
On any old cheapo plonk
I was a classless pisshead
Had to step up my game
Didn’t want my shameful roots
To catch me out again
So fucking sick of
Being related to the woman
Who cleaned up the pile of puke
So fucking sick of it

I thought a silk Monsoon dress
And a Cheadle postcode
Made me one
Of the elite
Talking like a village vicar
But fucking the men
Beneath the sodden sheets
Within the sordid walls
Not the epitome of discrete
And the milk man
Never noticed
The skulking, adulterous feet
Seeking silence
Betwixt the dawn chorus

Mental illness
Had no bounds
I was ebbing my life away
Behind bars in
Psychiatric compounds
Swapping my Monsoon frocks
For electric shocks
Lithium, Valium
Straight jackets worn like
psychosis condoms
On men’s misogynist cocks
Sanity took years
Craziness is
Classless

I am proud
Now
To be called working class
I’m proud to hold my head high
As I walk upon the needle littered grass
In this steel town hometown
Keeping my vowels plain and flat
And minimising my metaphors
Like I’m waltzing on broken glass
Don’t want my neighbours
To think
I’ve got
Pretentious
Notions
Of
Class

© 2020 Sarah Drury