i’ll make you a promise, okay?

There’s this thing on the back on my legs. You know that bit where your legs fold. Where you crouch. Where you tuck them in at the cinema. Or at your arguments. They’re arguments. It’s like claustrophobia you think you can itch away. The longer you say no to itching the more it scratches through your skull, into the creases no one will ever touch like that first time. It itches at me when I move house for the ninth time. When I go to work. Go for coffee. Makes everything else feel dry and decrepit, like the world needs to be moisturised over and over and over and over

         and over

         and over.

       And the hysterically boring part of it all is that I think I can fix it with the most mundane of activities. I search through the city I now mistake for home for it. For that moisturiser. And I write this so I sound more i

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       I promise you. I promise you that you will love me much more when the masses claw at the pages they’ll pay me for. I promise you. I promise you that you’ll itch when you read more and more and more and more and more of me. I promise you. I promise you that the uglier the words get the more you’ll want to promise me things. I promise you. I promise you that you’ll think I’ll never run out of things to say to you. I promise you. I promise you that you’ll vaporise your doubts. I promise you. I promise you I’ve got so much for you. I promise you. I promise you I’ll make it worth it. I promise you. I promise you that one of these will soon be about y

o

u.                                             Do you feel promised to?

       Used?

       Like a broom or a leash, a charger or a dildo?

       Scolded?

       Like a daughter or a student, a poker or a palm?

       There’s so much more of that to come, my dear.

       I promise you.