Boy Parts

people always conflate beauty with goodness

Is that what they call hard work nowadays? Fetish art.’

wondering if my simple Hobbit songs are good enough for these grand halls and their talking toilets.

I look at the photos again, the ones I didn’t delete. I look at his purple face, his bloody chin and nipple, his swollen cheeks. I wonder what the fuck I have to do for people to recognise me as a threat, you know? It’s like… am I even doing this shit? Have I even fucking done anything?

Like, do I have to snap the wine bottle inside him to get him to stop sending me sad emails? Do I have to cut his nipple off for him to realise he should probably ring the police? Do I have to cave his head in with my camera, rather than hit him the once? Do I have to crash his car? Do I have to smash a glass over the head of every single man I come into contact with, just so I leave a fucking mark?

‘You don’t need to feel embarrassed, Sturges. Like, honestly, it confounds me how much working-class talent goes to waste. Like, if me or the David Frenches of this world have a bit of a breakdown, it’s like… we spring back because Daddy always knows someone. It’s just not fair that your career gets completely fucking derailed because of your mental health, you know?’

I’m glad she’s still quantifying how much she wants to do stuff by how many dicks she’d suck to do it. I have a very clear memory of her grabbing my face in Heaven and complaining about the fact we were in a gay club with no ‘viable targets’. I’d suck twenty dicks to suck a dick right now, Irina.

He catches me looking at him, and I smile. He smiles back, though it’s awkward, and he walks away when we break eye contact. I’m in an aquarium – if you tap on the glass the fish swim away

with honey than with vinegar. And Eddie from Tesco is a fly, but he’s got a taste for vinegar. It’s like vinegar is all he’s ever had from people, and now he doesn’t even know what honey tastes like

‘Ah, well,’ he says. ‘You always used to say you only went out with me ’cause you felt sorry for me, didn’t you, Yvonne?’ says Dad. Mam grunts. ‘I remember asking her out at the disco. Have we told you this story, love?’

‘No,’ I say, as Mam says she’s heard it a thousand times. I have; it just winds her up. I think it’s the equivalent of someone who had a terrible car accident being told the story of how they nearly turned left, but turned right instead, and drove straight into a truck

thigh (fingers still strapped up, it’s a close-up crotch shot); a photo of a man I
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don’t remember feeding me a shot (angle’s awkward, I must have taken this without a tripod). There’s one of me taking what I assume is cocaine off a very big man’s chest, and then a photo of him choking me.

Honestly, I reckon if I’d dumped the cutting photo, I wouldn’t have had any faff. It’s a bit OTT, on reflection, a bit self-consciously edgy.

I only half-remember my presentation – when you do a crit, you have to explain your work to your group – because I was on this massive comedown, and I was just shaking, sweating, explaining each photo, and I snapped at the tutor, ‘You wanted me to level the fucking playing field, so here you go: it’s level!’

David French was the first person to say anything. Are you okay, Irina? And then I think someone said it was brave for me to be so candid about my mental health issues, and then the tutor sent everyone to get a cuppa, and held me back, telling me he had to inform someone.

Like nipples and swastikas are chill, but a bit of GHB and self-harm and it’s all ooo, u ok hun?

I pull out the one where I’m pissing, the blue vomit, the cut thigh and the bruisey-GHB face for the book.

I find a photo that doesn’t fit with the others. One I was fairly certain I’d burned. It’s me, somewhere green. Me by a dead old tree with a great hollow mouth. My arms are folded, and my hair is bobbed to my chin, face blank. Bobbed hair means it’s MA. And the tree means I should have burned this. I rip the photo in half, and into quarters, then eighths. I throw all the scraps in the bin, but eat the chunk with my face on it.

I do a sicky burp, so I call it a night