preen, preen,

preen and
pride

an e-book by sin s. rathore

sin s. rathore is a poet and
critic living in west yorkshire,
england. she is the author of two
ebooks (no i cant drive and i
wont learn and the geisha
series), a one-off collection
(softcore cloudstep) and has
been printed in two anthologies
and several online and print
medias as an artist, critic, poet
and journalist. she is the editor
of sadcore dadwave.
some people live in strange ways

Were not waiting for morning. Some people live

in strange ways, like us, and we agree on terms.
our laughter is suspended in the warm, thick air

of Summer, as if touchable; visible and light
trapped brightly and stuck, leaving marks, bruises
made real for the evening. We hear my housemate

listening to Radio 4, gently stirs us though not enough
to want to wake. Weve engaged, become, discussed
and touched. Tenderness can be a violent act, as youll

learn, when we re-entangle, you belong to me
tonight, and only me. A waistcoat demands me.
Its getting light. Some people live in strange ways

like us. Its warm again, lets make the most of the
uncomfortable heat; all the city drops into a deep fog,
like were the only ones awake and suspended in

the warm, thick air of Summer. Night came in like
the sound of an orchestra tuning to A; in spikes
and dips. Some people live in strange ways, like
us, and we agree on terms. Tonight, suspended
in the warm, thick air of Summer.













































22:58

I am a haunted house
stepped by red-gowned priests
and night-watchmen clowns
in nights that blow the
windows through, the blue
echo lilting white drapes upward
it is not unusual
there are no dogs at the door
theyre upstairs instead
where visitors twitch with my
theta-rhythms and their
static visions shifting, like
they were bent lm in the
projectors reel
here and there and old sound
familiar cries and rewound
sobs and brother somnus
falling asleep in his chair
to the sound of the blue sea
and the steps of the red priests





















meshes of the afternoon

Take me to that place where they do the burgers.

Describe to me your dreams about houses.
Are they empty? Because that means something.
Detract then delight farther than the pampered you.
Remember me assuring you I honoured your ideas?
People keep their eyes on us, watch our steps.
Im going to retweet you again. Im going to worry
About your mind based on how your feed reads.
Create an award just for me and get the trophy made.
Sext me. Send me a dick pic. Miss my breasts more
Than anything in this world. Remortgage the home you
Built deep in my aorta. Loneliness rejects me like an
Irritating stepchild, made itself known with an
I HATE YOU on the walls. Every night alone has been
an objection to concern. I am spilled out over this bar
Tonight. I am reserved and packaged for you again.
Im slowing and speeding. I am a silver, that is a
blind heart; I once saw it snow in April. Come on baby,
run the ruins with me. Sir, youre damn suspicious now.
Greatly hearted as you drift beside the yellow walls
its Summer now, so make the weather last for me.
Arrive as if carrying a very crooked ask. Explode
with me at midnight and respond to all my texts.
Quietly repeat us and dont think of what comes next










my magnolia days

a thick muss of us descends in

the clicking bite of opaque winter
with the snow-impacted ground as
if it had just fallen ice
hangovers kept me sustained in
dreaming free-fall

the slow bite freezes it
the cat laughed at it
it teased madness down my
back and froze my squirming neck with grief
the air tasted articial, like an example
of itself like a pre-
bought perfection going rotten in the
stale truth of our lives

thats not to say it wasnt sweet in fact
the cartwheels it turned and cognitions it
reversed in my head
retrograde my chosen amnesia
my enlarged amygdala
Ill remember you as the simple answer to
the nothing of my beginnings
and the banality of my day to magnolia day.

























this is really
heavy
coping strategies

I said yes
omitted from testing I
capitulated
handed my wrists to wraps of
blister-packs
and arrested for crimes
of coping strategies
suggested - but not committed - to
a chronic clinical cave of cool
and jittering calm in chrome
bowed walls, the critical sleep
where dreams realise those
hands and eyes alive from
coping strategies
so drifting through on cruise-control
is
no longer my will, but I am
belted in and yes! Quite rightfully!
Let the journey do its worst, open
the windows, make it shiver and the
dust-roads ecks all y up, obscure
my vision to your vision
mine was wrong so make it
colder, I
deserve this and soon Ill have no
need for
unacceptable, inexplicable
para-cosmical and bloody mental
coping strategies

writers will be writers, darling
but the lunatics still mad.





















the state
i am in?
what
state?








dont you know, theres something i need to
talk to you about?

Its coming dark in this rented bedroom where we sleep, on a heap of pillows, sort of lying
together, youre careful not to put your arm around me but your legs are pressed up by
mine. You are breathing in the most quietest I have ever heard you. I have my back to you
and I feel this movement. People have got opinions. The suspicion that surrounds us
cases us to hide further, deeper, only centimetres apart. You turn and a set of keys falls off
the bed and onto the oor but is briey caught mid-air for a second as we both stop
breathing or moving or, more precisely, thinking. I heard the echo of the drop for the rest of
the evening. Louder when I turned to look at you, and in your face I saw a sort of femininity
I hadnt noticed before, and the co-dependency you falter in my loving me still, presenting
as you, talking under your breath in your sleep. I dont want to tell you what you said
because you wont remember, but it was pretty wild. The more and more I look at you the
more I see the fragility of us and the palpable barrier between. When the keys nally drop
you start up, then you look at me and say go back to sleep and we go back to sleep.
They fall. We try not to.

It feels like its probably dark outside when we wake up but its not, were just tricked into
thinking that because we slept so long and now we feel bad. The light present in this room
is so ugly. I need a lamp. Do you think you could get me a lamp? Call it a tribute. I dont
like the way we look under the harsh light, we look too real. I can see each grey hair in
your sideburns and you can see the moles under my eyes that make it look like I slept in
my make-up.

We leave the house to go and buy supplies and you stand at the bus-stop near my house.
Youre not the only man Ive ever stood here with. You lean against the timetable and
smoke so I have to try to remember if the bus comes in at 04, 14, 24, 34, 44, 54, or 07, 17,
27, 37, 47, 57. Youre a tall shape and you seem less tense in the top half, wearing colours
of midnight shadows. When we were sleeping earlier I had a dream that I wasnt very
lonely any more. So many middle class people go cycling round here, all with baskets on
the front of their bikes. One comes by us now, a twee Francophile with a baguette in hers,
as if waiting to be caught by a photographer. She goes in the direction of the Golf Club but
neither one of us can imagine her playing. In that few seconds I heard the keys fall again.
Not the few seconds as she cycled by, but the overlap of seconds during and briey after
that, when I accidentally fell into you whilst trying to get out of her way, and that second in
your arms seemed absolutely terrifying. So much more intimate than the sex weve been
comfortably having. Theres something more intimate about seeing you and not
senselessly throwing it down than actually doing so. The keys drop so loud in my head I
look down at the pavement to see if theyre there.

Today, Im nervous on the bus. Things have been quite pointless recently. Theres a man
on the back seat who is talking on his BlackBerry about having just got out of jail again. He
looks pale and manages to be skinny and abby at the same time. He said its been a
week. A look of disdain bounces off your face and onto all reective surfaces and I remind
you that you are no better than him, youre just more afuent. Hes just got out for GBH
and is organising a drug deal over the phone. Now tell me how hes so different to you?
Youre not exactly the King, you know. You tell me how comfortable it actually is inside
and make no attempt to express contrition about your anecdotal experience. The boy on
the bus knows violence. Like you, he knows the ood of adrenaline that in me causes
hyperventilation and hot, clammy skin but in men like you causes lightening in the limbs
and tightening, coiled ngers. You can imagine a ght happening with all the balletic grace
of trapeze dancers in the big top, but really it is just ghting, and all men like you are let out
an animal, night-animals the police are used to seeing, their fur raised and their eyes
luminescent when caught out in the darkness by a torch.

Youve missed Manchester, I can tell. Youre diving back into it like a child gone back to the
family caravan park. You want to go to the food hut and then the clubhouse and get a
slushy. You want to order a cocktail from the old place but the old place has shut down an
all you can get there now is burritos. You draw parallels. Back home we have a bar a bit
like this. Back home they do the best martinis. Yes, but back home is not where I am,
and I am not humble enough to come out with a statement like that and say it with any
humility. Listen to you, calling it home! This may as well be London. London isnt some
magical place where all wishes come true. It doesnt have its own mind, theres no
collective consciousness, its not full of opportunity and i couldnt nd work there unless I
worked for you. There is nobody more friendly or fashionable or happy than here, people
dont walk differently. Its just a city. And just like here its so much more lonely than a place
populated by millions should be. The difference between here and London is a matter of
miles. The difference between me and you is a matter of three years and terrible timing.
Theres very little about me you havent already walked through.

Its ofcially night time and the streetlights have come on. I see you in a composite of
differently moving shapes belonging to their own eras. Your neck outstretched peering into
the window of a bar to check for tables is Summer last year when I walked out of your
house, and you stood at the door to watch me leave, peering over the hills, without the
energy to call me back. Your arms will always be Summer 2010 when we rst met and I
saw then, naked, at the baths, and you made a comment about how the shape of my legs
was pleasing to you. The head on your body is every single day of Summer 2011, looking
down at a desk then back up at me then back down then back up at me from behind the
glass wall that kept us separated. The body as a whole is Summer 2013, now, the present.
What is it with us, and Summer? The rst time we fell in love was Winter but even then, I
reckon wed been saving it up since June.

I dont want to stay out until morning but I dont want to not stay out until morning either. I
need the comfort of buildings much taller than me, I need to watch the day come right back
in again, I need to fall asleep in a cab home and have you wake me and we do that little
dance of do-we-or-dont-we. Come in, stay as long as you want, its not like Ive got
anything else to do. Outside the Midland Hotel there is still a concierge, at this hour. Hes
wearing a maroon coloured suit with gold buttons and what I think is a stupid hat. I do hate
the pomposity of the rich, the cartoonishness of money; the shocking pink of a 50 note,
silver cloches that covered our breakfast when we stayed here, the shiny baubles you all
adorn your poor with to decorate them. The concierge is kind of handsome.

We made it. The sun is beginning to rise so cant we go watch it from somewhere? Cool
blue sky dimmers in, we stand and wait for a taxi. Get in the back with me and put your
arm around me. Thats safe. Its all quite safe at this point. Just try not to think about it. And
listen, I meant to tell you. I really, really, really need to talk to you about something. Its
about me. Well, its about us.











things to expect

Somnolence, sluggishness, fatigue, dry mouth, sore throat, dizziness, abdominal pain,
constipation, upset stomach, orthostatic hypotension, inammation or swelling of the
sinuses or pharynx, blurred vision, increased appetite, signicant weight gain,
hypothyroidism, disturbance in speech and language, frightening hallucinations, mouth
ulcers, rapid swelling of skin around the eyes, increased appearance of skin ageing,
diabetes, tachycardia.
There is an emerging controversy regarding fatalities associated with this drug. The deaths
of at least six US military veterans who were given Drug cocktails including this drug,
have been attributed to its inclusion by military doctors to treat PTSD. Approx. 10,000
lawsuits against AstraZeneca for problems ranging from slurred speech and chronic
insomnia to death have been led by many individuals and their families.



































turning point

Change to font size 11 because it looks
way classier than 12. Make each word of
my name a shape; elongate my vowels, like

how people say it suh-PHEE-ah but youve
always said it SO-phee-AH. You cling on
to the round sounds that soften and
announce me.

Oh BOY Im feeling tight tonight, my ribcage
bones need loosening up, Im starving and
Im coiled up short, Im boxed up for export.

Tomorrow Ill be windmills in the Pennines
on the brow-line of the sandy hills, the
swoosh that slices silence and unsettling

apex. The votes have all been counted and
the boats are washed up empty. There are no
beds or ships sailing northbound, toward

the diamond stars. Maybe I just missed them.
The nights have all been empty. Recent lights
are rst ash blues; second the white sparks

that shoot from my eyes, then to you. Ive
heard me start to falter, heard my tongue
Too thick for eloquence. My thoughts all

cherry-plucked from air by vagrant night-haws.
Yet theres still a speeding motorcycle circling
This mind. Its hot all night. It breaks my back

and makes me hear your name in song. It
calls out loud like: HEY SWEETHEART. BE MY
BABY DEAR HEART and the howling cats in

season sing TURN BACK NOW like con
legno on the e-string, third position, yes
Im ACADEMIC when I study you, your

gured bass and Bach chorale, the tune
to A, the crash of plates on kitchen slates, the
microtonal shards arranged in third dimension

decoupage. Or are there four? Or ve? Or ten?
It was only a matter of when, when would the outright
Bliss of speeding be reduced to these bald tires?

How useless Ive become. Hey, look, theyre
back in bloom, you said, arranging sweet-pea
in a posy, twisting lilac stalks. I wish

theyd let you in my room. Because of magic
reasons. I hear you eyeing up my legs, and
I remove each layer. Then the skin, and

muscles tear right off the bone and I am bare.
You are here in the bright darkness of 9.
Keeping records of my stay. Tell me your news,

heres mine: I thought of him all day today.
Tell me how to quit that, please, distract me
very quickly. Im feeling very very and by rights

youre very too. Its not that youre not beautiful,
Youre just so beautiful it hurts my feelings.



























































welcome back

I packed the house away without you.

Bagged and wrapped each memory with
ideals of progression.
Your shirts were
considered
then a friend administered
a ame
to your letters, I had no
say, in the matter -
I only watched them cripple, and
I tried to hold it all back.

In the bedroom, which became
this ward,
clinicised; the sticky pads
that lived on my body
that I tore off when peacefully discharged
(they checked me, for
ten hours, only my heart
until they checked my mind.)

I became obsessed with one shirt.
I dont recall its pattern, but
It was ether when pressed to my face
every day and every night
over and over, and
over and over and over and over
and over. I could not
breathe you out. The nal
ingestion left me short
of breath. Like someone should
rub my back.

Your shirts threads got thicker
and try as I might to thin them out
they only ever
intensied, and
East Lancashires mill-smoke still
leaves me feeling sick.

Love me the way I still love you.
guess what: Im far ung into
space right now. Im the burning ex-planet
learning the sky
as it learns you in turn shifting phantasm
earthing out the sky
like friends
like lovers
like two people
in love
making it making love
making
making
making

2.
So yes, perhaps I am the half-snapped vinyl of you
existing in splinters on the oor, smashed up when
it was thrown against a feature wall, a record
whose grooves I could not needle the tune from
not even one last time
no matter how much I tried.

3.
The bright purple light of potassiums
thankfully died down in me now. I exist
much more like lithium. You might not recognise
me now but its good Im that ether I mentioned
in that mix-CD inlay.
Im a million molecules
trying to nd home
every day but -
one caught and took
and Id give it all to see you here.

Yes, I am swathed in the 96% darkness
of missing you.

4.
Honey. I t snug in the crags of
Yorkshire, and yes, it might pause me
for worship of the world; but I am seeing it
all (in absentia) for you. I am walking with
the constant icker of you, still by my side
like a sticking tape
like static
like ghosts in the machine: God
I never thought Id miss you
half as much

as I do.



















their nickname for you is hermit crab

and then they gave me your hand

to hold my hand because it wasnt
wearing a latex glove and I needed
the skin, even if it was your skin
familiar, I thought, but was foreign,
clammy. The nurses come and go
and only you mention Michelangelo
because you havent noticed the date
or remembered to move on. I remind
you, its 2014, and some of us have
moved on. Yes you said. And now
its my turn.

Outside in the hospital gardens we spot
anaemic daffodils; not golden, nor a
host, I remind you, we are moving on.
I feel the bastard child of cancer kicking.
I tell you I want to kill all of the doctors
and become a Greek god. The surgeons
have my tissue and Im coming down
from ether; what did I once say? When
I saw you, with a robe pressed up against
your face thinking I hadnt seen? I do
not have to kill you, Daddy, for when I was
deep under, I knew such wistful pictures.






















their nickname for you was the captain

1.

For the whole of last Summer, we had a
city to ourselves, one that hummed us into
daytime naps and lost us to canal-side bars
and barges where your friends lived now -
emigrated - for a month, or so.

We considered it, yielding to small recollections
as ashbacks, ripples, on the waters body
memories so deep they need a boat to travel
through; but now so sunk below
theyre down where the dreck and algae goes
so we came back to our senses, and we
swapped keys to one anothers houses instead.
But - and I didnt tell you this - I learnt to swim.

When Im drifting off Im drifting off alone
just like tonight, when there are no slow boats
no birds seducing bees or city beach of pricey
chargrilled shrimp and lobster shells left on your plate
as you gently sign for table service

no, your thread had been wound too short
as one wick caught in a tea light oating
in some water-bowl, and when you dream
you are always dreaming someone who isnt you
is having their life saved instead.

Its one oclock in the morning you said
then its early for us
I thought you were exhorting me to be quiet
and when, at 5am the landscape slid into view
I photographed myself in the reection of a
bus-shelter and sent it to you.
I dont think you are very okay today.
No I know. Send in the boats.
and then around this time Id wake up twitching
with great heat, and youd open up my arms
and bring the cool, old rivers home.

2.
there is a parallel world where relationships invert
and retrograde until the series left is only love,
recall, and regret, sticking heavy, hard onto
human skin - blindfolded and pale - hanging from
any number of stretches: a branch, or a beam
I hear them on most nights. The sound of cancer
of hospitals and illness, of poets, models, noblemen
and nally, I begin
(as I walk to your house from the top of the Withens
and the bus exhaust smokes out all the tourists
from their bed of cobbles) all evening to dive

Onto the rm hold of your bed, and the grey comfort
of the glint of the outdoors coming through, then
underneath your blankets, alone.

So you didnt understand this fable of life. Well nor
do I; I keep forgetting what part of you Im supposed to
remember the most when the day comes, because I didnt
give you children, or a white dress, nor did I feed you cake
in the right way

But I swear that in the nights when you slept next to me;
Come morning, when I saw the sun glisten in with glints
of rain with you, a fresh, new dewy dawn was there and we shared it
next to each other as slowly breathing nal friends
like two dusted-off doves coming home late from a night-shift
at the mint
and you looked like youd found a diamond

just a few hours before our last goodbye
but then, without a clue, your body changed
Into a breathless shape that could not age.

















































Copyright Sian S. Rathore for Peanut Gallery Press, May 2015.