Perspective

Every guy knows what it’s like at the urinal. You’re peeing next to a stranger. Whether you care about it or not, you are revealing something of yourself. There is a certain vulnerability. You are on show and they are on show. You can see why a lot of men are embarrassed by it. Some people can’t urinate when someone is stood next to them. Maybe it goes back to the days where we would mark our territories with wee. Perhaps an alpha male shouldn’t share where he pisses.

For years I was too afraid to use public lavatories and would never use a urinal. I’ve managed to get over my fear now but I still have to wait for a urinal with an empty space next to it. I’m pretty certain very few people actually want to look at cocks. Most guys will try not to look at yours and hope you’re not looking at theirs, but who honestly cares. Continue Reading.

Wet Nightmare 

It’s a new room. It’s an old room but it’s a new room to him. It’s very comfortable but it doesn’t feel like it’s his quite yet. Something residual lingers of the previous tenant. And he hasn’t made enough of his own memories and routines there yet to claim it fully.

Sometimes he feels a presence in the room but over the weeks he has stamped his authority over it and it’s starting to feel more like home.

One night he wakes suddenly as though someone was talking to him, a shirt hanging on the wardrobe door moves in the corner of his eye but when he looks it’s still. He turns on the lamp to see better in the grey room but there’s nothing there. He is left with a half feeling that he was being watched. Unperturbed, he eventually drifts off. Continue Reading.

My story Monkey’s Uncle was printed recently in You Stumble Into A Room Full Of Poets with an illustration from the delicious Natalie Oleksy-Piekarski. If you can’t find a copy you can read it on my story page.

She Loves Me Not

She loves me not. She said she used to love me before I started ruining her flowers. I don’t know why I’m trying to joke about this; it isn’t funny.

My girlfriend has just broken up with me. It all started with a haircut. For me anyway, for her it seems to have started much earlier.

Continue Reading