There are memories at the bottom of a pint glass
A Stella chalice
With lipstick marks around the rim,
Red like crime scene fingerprints.
There are memories in this chair
In this pub
Splattered up the walls and clogging up the gutters
Thick and sour like birthday vomit.
There are memories in these matts of hair,
Brittle and tangled from neglect
Brushing my face,
Flailing in the air to echoing heavy metal screams
Itchy.
I remember sitting on the 68 bus on a Monday
Tapping a toe to the sound of 2000s electronica
Eyes tripping in and out of focus like a junkie
Fucking feral
Twitching at the sunlight
Picking at a spot of acne of my neck till it bled
Jilted
Self-pitying
With metal spikes pierced into my lips
Talking with a lisp
And gagging on disgusting cigarettes I bought from a kid outside the petrol station
There are memories at the bottom of a pint glass
And trodden into the sole of my broken trainers.
In the whirring song of a tattoo machine
And the angry tiger engraved on my chest.
There are memories threaded in white bedsheets on the washing line,
Flapping in the wind like a flag of surrender.
Other memories gather dust and start to rot
On the top shelf, in a dark room.
Nibbled on by mice and concealed beneath cobwebs
In the basement of my mind.
Sometimes they spill out
Leaking out of me and staining the carpet.
Sometimes they creep up on me in the night
Poking and prodding
I lay awake
Haunted by a slur of my words in the pub,
Drunken text messages,
And panic attacks in the Asda car park.
There are memories at the bottom of a pint glass
But memories of her are different
Dim and flickering
Like the broken neon sign at the kebab shop on Jewry Street
I think of them as individual pixels
2D and over saturated
Deep fried
Linking together to create a bigger image,
A better image
Engulfed in the misty veil of teenage optimism,
Rose tinted by nostalgia and cheap cans of cider.