Words

I looked over my past writing here and felt a bit uncomfortable. I still broadly stand by what I’ve said and it’s nice to look back but… my grammar and spelling is awful. Like a VPL: my ignorance is showing. I went to a two hour course on grammar at work and the moment they started chatting about clauses – I was dead to the world.

But then I remembered:

A friend recalling that he, a fellow working class northerner and a posh guy were talking. The posh guy was struggling.

“Talk faster -” my friend said, “working class people talk quickly. Talk faster.”

I type like I talk and
I talk so fast that my words come out muddled. My brain needs to catch up with my tongue and my typing fingers. And like speech, there’s little editing. It shows –

I, write, with, too, many, commas,

and whatever these things are ;

I write like I talk
– in a rush
because I am
afraid of pauses
afraid of these fucking things .

If you pause – they might nick you, dock your benefits or put you on the street. If you don’t get your thoughts out, you’ll get looked over
because you’re a woman and
because your brain doesn’t work ‘properly’ and
because you’re a migrant or you have no home or you’re out of work.

Fuck it. The past writing stays.