Lonely boy by the lake of Pokhara.
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Sometimes when in paradise, a literal haven, you feel the loneliest. I haven’t felt lonely for a while, and when you don’t it’s something you can’t fathom, it’s something I turn my nose up at.

‘It’s just separation from the soul,’ I tell myself.

There's nowhere to run but within. But I miss my nephews and nieces, I miss an open fire, I miss a Parma, I miss the shared reality with my brothers, my mother’s consistency, the fathers silence, my best friends’ humour. I do miss it and a wiser self alchemises the desires to excitement, that unless I perish in a freak accident, it will come around soon again.

It’s been some time since feeling an urge to write this, whatever this is. It hasn’t stopped the flow of words. I see writing as like having a girlfriend, you can only go to her so much to make you feel better before she just leaves you because you're a miserable loser. So I came to the blank white page with jokes and insights. With bugs that talk and depressed dogs. Short stories. I finished the first draft of my first book. I finished it. After four years of giving up because I do not know how. I still don’t know how, but the first draft is finished. To watch what manifests when you write without judgment. To see egos you're dealing with write their way into stories and solve themselves. Those characters that sit behind your eyes and play in your dreams, they speak between the quotation marks and in retrospect you can only laugh. Who wrote this?

Not me, but someone trying to help me, someone trying to help themselves.

A lot has happened; twelve days in Kathmandu. Sitting in the Fat monks bar drinking long necks of Ghorkas that get you sideways after two and stupid after three. One night with an old Irishman, the next with a French girl and a Russian man, the next with ten Aussies, the next with three poms and one with one pom. On the way home I listen to the old lady trying to get me into a dance bar. I walk in and it’s riddled with fifteen-year old’s. When I sit down one sit besides me and asks me to buy her a drink and I say no.

“How old are you?” I ask,
“I am twenty-one.”
“No you’re not.”
After a while of my stance on the drink and stature in dismissal of her supposed age she eventually just told me the truth.
“I am sixteen, I work here and it’s my job to get people to buy an extra drink.”

It was sad because it was an elderly lady who sent me up the stairs, who knew what was going on. These daughters come from the mountains in pursuit of money to send home and end up talking to men in dirty old clubs. Maybe it wasn’t so sinister, it’s all just a trick, but a worser man than I would see the smoothness of an underage thigh and let his travelling mind land somewhere no good.

The night before I left, the power went out. My bus was at seven and my phone was flat. I set an alarm on my watch and didn’t fall asleep because I was sure I would sleep through it. I got to the bus station, which I wasn’t sure was the bus station, after a thirty-five-minute cab ride. I sat at that bus station with no sleep and lingering energy in my lower back and it arrived at 8:45.

The ride was so bumpy I couldn’t read my book. I sat next to a chick that looked like a dude but either way was nice and friendly. I moved to try and sleep and couldn’t as my head rattled on the window.

Arriving in Pokhara; it’s as if a billionaire constructed a city. The large lake and hundreds of great restaurants. I was still riding the high of finishing the first draft of the book. I just wanted to get drunk and stoned. After a good night’s sleep.

The first day I got a massage. A twenty-one-year-old Nepalese girl spoke in broken English. She was twenty-one (I think). Forty-five minutes into the massage as I lay on my back she leant in and kissed me on the lips. It wasn’t a dingy place either, it was as if her desire corrupted her logic, her fear of breaking the law. It was a real life opening to a porno. Nothing happened from there except I kissed her again.

Now the problems arise, the real-life characters in this form of writing, is it worth the risk of hurting someone’s feelings to write from the heart?

Does the truth have to come in two halves. To be a writer you do need to have some form of destructional personality. Not on purpose, but evolution is inherently destructive. Yes, I’ll hide behind being a writer and a human. In the end my summary of the situation is that the Nepalese masseuse wanted me to marry her and support her, little did she know I'm an artist with enough money to support me for another eighteen months. Stubborn as a mule, especially to tricks, only I can trick me.

The next night, walking home drunk and ready to sit outside my window and smoke a joint before I go to sleep with a dry mouth. I see a tiny little midget outside a dance bar. Smaller than a midget, all in proportion but just tiny. I walk in and order one beer, again they all sit beside me and ask me to buy them a drink and I say no. There's no obligation so bad luck whores!

They aren’t whores, I don’t know what they are, girls dance on the stage wearing casual clothes as if they’re doing a mundane performance for their nan, their facial expressions to match. To my right is a girl who looks like Pocahontas and to my left is the tiny lady. She shakes my hand and it’s as if I'm holding a babies’. I have always had a crush on Pocahontas but still I dismissed that with the illusion of the place. I shared a beer with the tiny girl. I wanted to get a video but it seemed rude. Having shared my beer I did get a photo with the tiny girl. As I left, I forgot my backpack and she came running over behind me with it, looking like she was carrying a portable toilet. Midgets are god’s gift to paedophiles, I thought.

I don’t know what to do man, with this. A part of me wants you to know nothing about me, to fill the gaps with better stories than mine with whatever I do publish. A part of me knows if I hold anything back then there's no point doing it. A part of me wants to say who cares and post everything, but tonight a lady asked me what I do. I told her I'm a writer. She asked me what I write about and I said mostly about the frustrations of living in a world I don’t like. How I don’t really like that anymore.

I'm sorry, not tonight. Love you.

You're just not a very good writer subconscious, and yes that’s you talking to you. How does it feel?
You do need to have confidence and if you ask more than two whys you will label yourself a self-indulgent know it all.

The devil knocked on my door loudly, bang bang bang. I ignored him for hours. Soon his knock grew weak and I heard him sigh and sit at the doorstep. I opened the door and sat beside him.
“You know, I used to be an angel,”
“I know” I replied, “Why did you leave?”
“It just didn’t feel right. Am I wrong if I'm just me?”
“I don’t know,”
“I don’t want to just be the Devil either,”
“Me either.”
We shared six beers and six joints and had six shots of stiff whiskey.
The next day I had a message written with the blood of a stone that read,
‍thanks for last night, it was nice to feel like an angel again. Do you want to do it again tonight?
‍I didn’t reply.

I create separation from myself, the way the pupil can only see itself through reflection. Too many yeses create a strong flow that requires some discipline to slow down. Now the mind expands and I show empathy to the shadows. I show empathy to a post. I see my thoughts in the mind of strangers and begin to cling to them. I judge them for thinking what I made them think until it breaks me. Stillness an ache. Trying to be relatable whilst living a fantasy. I see a small mouse running near me and find it grotesque. Further judgement. Judging the judgement. What a spiral. Nausea and blurred vision. Reaching for the phone for comfort. The strongest drug of them all. Get drunk and high so you forget to think it’s bad. It’s just a phone. Wake up tired in search for it. It’s a worry. Why worry?

I'm ready to burn it all down, this page included. Everyone. I'm ready to cut you all off. I'm ready to run to the mountains or do the opposite. I'm ready to be drastic. The world thinks you're crazy, so be it. The stories are getting too abstract. More judgment. So I sit and I forgive the mouse. Take a deep breath of heroin as it crawls on to my foot. If I am a fraud, as I say, a self-indulgent pessimist, then why would I listen to him?

See the danger of it?

And this is me, whoever I am, reporting from paradise.
And if its incoherent gibberish, you'll see why I feel lost.
And if you dare try and help me, I will do the opposite.
How many saviours do you have to fuck, before you admit you can’t be saved?
How many saviours do you have to fuck, before you realise you just like fucking?
Lies crawl on me like roaches, I’ll die alone.
It starts to rain, what a beautiful day to cry.
Clouds rumble; they’re hungry for a soul.
If you try and help me, I’ll punish you for stealing my freedom.

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