Beirupdate, M

I meet M whose father hears voices and who dropped out of life to become something unreal, to act and commit herself as though to hospital. She tells me of earlier years and older men and fired teachers and married men and ruined lives like one of us. All the while I talk through teeth and can’t believe she’s real with eyes like fields and her voice a mirror to passing guys all envy and stares. Because I show them garbage and flowers she says and I have a beautiful face she says but the men here treat me like a cockroach. Tomorrow she cooks foul for us and launders and sings and laughs and fucks and asks for violence and not to stop and says she’d forgive her man with offers of others so with her I’m the most hated man in the room. For me she pulls favours and friends and spends the day but she can’t be real while I see it through those around me watching in the Hard Rock café, through cameras and bile where J swills local beers and tells his wildest tales to MTV and orders wings for the first time in years. Later M and I lay to Damien Rice in the halflight and the next day she rings to the same songs to bring me tea and oranges and send me pictures and talk of morals and visas and England and marriage and I see the rocks beneath the berth and I know she’s falling in love so this is where I stop writing.