annie january.

mid january, i m already panicked about time slipping away from me, things passing me by, scrabbling at moldy and crumbling walls with black fingernails, time badly spent, like a pound coin in a broken vending machine –

i spend time finishing off the wheelbuild, and then i have a beautiful Velocity Deep V playing card pattern rim laced with tricolour spkes and a metallic red hub – this makes me very happy, despite the fact that i have to do it twice after spotting a mistake the first time, and mullering the halflink chain while putting it on, having to buy a second one –

at brick lane market, perving over bike parts with ilma, the wind is chill but the sun is out and overall its a fantastic winter morning – the tiger lady painted on the wall with the green hair and the big bum – the silver fox at the coffee stand – good mocha, bitter chocolate –

and now he s just stuck a line of k up his hooter before i arrive his chinese neighbour is smoking a fag outside and lets me in – we draw on each others feet and legs with magic markers – godzilla is half-wolf and the city skyscrapers are peopled with little piggies – my right foot is a bum farting – he toys with the idea of dressing me up as maggie thatcher and writing whore on my forehead – we have a laugh and although its there, in the background, the scar above his ear with the tattooed initials of the surgeon who drilled into his brain, there, all there – i have to tell him, have to, about AW, and i think he ll understand, unlike Adam to whom i cannot even tell my real name – i dont take k anymore, it makes me hear things that are not there, things i dont like, the horns of machinery the screams of the landscape – but i will not stop him, he says it stops the fits for a few days, who am i to argue? takes a few lines – doesnt go crazy on it, mind, just takes one here and there and then he s definitely out of it at one point drooling on my arm

he says the L word. and its throwaway i have no idea what to think, or should i think or just feel

i m forgetting the details, the bath, the tobaccoless spliff, the walk in the rain (and all i can come up with, when he asks what i really wanna do, is which biscuit to eat first, which is ridiculously lame of me, when did i stop reaching for the sky?)

i say these words, when i get to the social centre, that it is darkest before the dawn, thinking about people that i know getting tasered in the back at dale farm, or people getting tasered at all, and phoenix says he doesnt like thinking about things in terms of darkness and light, he got a point, it divides us – but i need something to hold on to, never know if i m keeping it together –

cycling to keep warm, after sleeping rough in hungary, the mornings snails crackling under my wheels, tonight in London it rains, and near the river at stratford the wind whips little needles of water into me as i cycle/shunt past

morning: i havent slept much, roll away, fold towards – the gulls floating fast on the strong currents of the rising tide – ramshackle small stations, relics, i ve gone bygone – busy early trains to childrens over-excitement on entering London, they re making me sad, i m too sensitive these days, on the verge of tears, rough ground, or G.U.R –

morning: G comes in to borrow coffee while i m still sleeping, he turns the heater on for me, the room is toasty when i eventually get up, the little lovelies of living in a community –