You can’t see through another man’s eyelids (Advice)

 

Sometimes we speak of the things that we see

using puppetry, tea leaves and lies:

 

1. Don’t cut off your face to spite someone else’s face.

2. Don’t cut off your face.

3. A boiled sweet pause in someone else’s mouth doesn’t necessarily mean its time for you to speak.

4. You are probably not as ugly as you think you are,

you are a generous buffet of crisps.

5. The minimum fill line on a kettle … is real.

Kettles break,

so do hearts so don’t eat too much butter or fall in love with a koala  (they’re not what you think they are.)

When a koala breaks your heart try to know someone from Yorkshire

who’ll feed you tea and elasticate your socks.

6.Don’t be mean to fumbling frogs,

the wet effort they put into punch lines.

Frogs can fly when you don’t make them feel self conscious about it.

7. Romanticise the repetitive clunk.

8. Give your pets a heroic aura.

9. Some kids got done for saying the word azure,

some kids get done for swearing,

I come from a town where the barmaids have tits

and the fella’s are homophobic, but in nice way:

”you’re weird and you’re short and yer Mam tells me your gay but I knew your Da, and he was witty and so are you, you’re alright you love, you are. weird hair”.

10. If you’re working class you inherit anger.

If you’re middle class you inherit embarrassment.

And a house.

11. The fight for sexual equality is not between men and women, it’s between people and dickheads.

12. Everyone’s school burns down.

13. Check yourself, you might have no business sleeping with virgins.

14.  For a while I had an apple tree,

tall and crisp and meant for people with healthy gums and legs for climbing, good for you.

For a while I had a an apple tree

but it didn’t suit me.

15. If I could I’d stay in that moment where the tennis ball reaches it’s height and takes a breath

before remembering to fall …

inside that beat  sunset feels like acceptance.

 

Jackie Hagan, Manchester UK.