Marika
Norwich, mid-90s: grunge was washedup,
the altrock baton passed to Britpop.
Major Junta jackspratted on last gasps,
bastard diet austere as Mars.
There was this flat (we called it 'The Flat'),
which shanty comp 70s-stranded by Thatch
-er lost dipsomaniacal 6thformers to.
We mistook slurring for sibilance of cool.
Endangered National Handbag paid the rent
for teenage mutant nightmare tenants.
2's company, 14's a crowd,
but 2 schoolleavers had 12 mates pile round.
3.23pm, my limerent object arrived
on clanky clatter of gaybasketed bike.
Strawbripe, barelylegal designer bag girl
set my protoincel neurals a-gambol.
1/2 Finnish, sphinxy, ditzy, boho gimma.
Sly & scatty, her moniker: Marika.
Freshwater tinseltown scintilleyes green.
French negatitties, pixie-lean.
Henna'd hair l/ wickered wine, was it her
'lightreflectingboostertechnology' conditioner?
How I wanted to suck her ingénue face
l/ a nirmal, holierthanherbal vape
(a smokefree snowflake anachronism
- demerit goods? Consumers risked 'em
more in the 90s). Calumeting Marlboro Lites,
our lungs were younger than our nights.
My limerent project & I still had a connection,
my filtering fixation such that even
this selfdescription di'nt nix our arty amity:
she a 'lovechild of Sweet Valley High & the Prodigy'!
Kindred kooky bodgers, artprodgers;
on cropped jeanjacket's back she embroidered
daisies. Hippyskirt, swisscheesed sweater: her chic,
bubblegrunge. Boosted her Nordically féérique
aura, icy jiggylessness re me. I had to get
toowankeredtospeak to speak to her, wolf drugs
to misinterpret
frigid emeralds, scintilleyed looks
over paraphernalia tables, daisydoodled
schoolbooks.
Arcades ambo, tho' not even a David & Assia:
peripheral scuzzbard was I to Marika.
I, title of the 1-hit-wonder by Wheatus.
She, intoxicatingly naff Dorothy Perkins
priestess.
My odeballs couldn't humect the friendzone.
Still, it was homelier than my brokenhome.
2
Madboy tracking solace to a posh squat.
Well, posh to a point: red tap ran hot.
Mad boys meeting at exclusive dive
to tope tarantulajuice & toke hotknives.
Or snort les neiges downtown,
Blizzards of Nozz noo tamarah-bound.
Talcum simulacrumbs up our schnozzas
(whuzz billy once, but cut l/ Whitehall prozzas).
Tonsillitis torpedoes of Thai grass, mentalated
cigarettes. Or on soapbar sedated, superjaded.
Tripping on Blickling shrooms grit tea.
Young lungs sang, limbs yinged geometry,
whilst Roxy Wrongroom, our resident axeman
fingerbanged his Satyrcaster crisp as a catscan,
replinkating Radiohead & the Roses.
I aimed oeillades at a Finglish vogueress,
Finglish backfisch. Bicycle monarch of my heart,
whose gaybasketed pigeon streethawk would be 'Gah!'-
winning conso prize in hand of Scabby Queen
(E.T.'s dodo rode home by the one w/ knuckles haem-
iferous). But amphibious suns, scintilleyes green
had scintilleyes for precocious partymachines
other than I. Before she soured 17,
rival Flat Packers pawed her pixie-lean
pert friedeggs outta cups o' Topshop nylace.
Venus twagged our starcharts (O zodiache!),
yet her callipygian frontal lobes I got,
I consoled myself, to Platonically frot
as I joypopped & carpe noctem'd,
jorummed & caromed l/ an on the bottle kite to the
bottom
of the class (of '97), an 'F' for selfpreservation.
I was the winner, my own worst. Our eviction
my selfharmageddon bloodbath's aftermath.
Did I need a bath after? You do the blood math.
Was Giroday mixology to blame, cumulative
gilravage? Or slower khaosmosis of an abusive
homelife? I lost it same night the paps killed Di,
but I was in theatre when anchors were dewyeyed,
so out-emoting Bliar was no cute excuse.
Maybe I just couldn't handle my tarantulajuice.
Or was loss of my dignity, sanity, figurative shit,
literal blood a disinhibited fit
of anterotic pique? Hell hath no fury
l/ ardour starved barmy, undiagnosed BPD.
Children of the Corn coroners
might have checked my Weetabix crucifix particulars
last century, but I've been sacrificial mutton
for ages. 1/2 a Viagra's fertiliser now my membrum
virile verges on marcescent, yet
hormonally leavening/ haunting to teenpoet
juve me was she, 1st cardiocracker. Howevs,
more brainwaif than Pandora Louise Elizabeth
in the cold light of recency bias 'Eureka'.
Coz decades later I don't know what I saw in Marika.
I have brothers to love me l/ a brother.
That sweet 16 solipsister was just another
90s indie hippychick. If I had another chance,
I'd be 1 of the coolkids, Love's Insouciants,
not a farouche velcroid for Marika.
I'd rinse her l/ a hindsighted heckler,
nostaljoker,
& not lose my cool l/ madboy who'd never seen
a fangast fit-as Finglish indie chick,
pixie-lean.