Introduction Foreword Writing Together Coping Within The System Coping On My Own Coping With Teenagers Coping With Relationships Live Performance

Rachel Best

Diary Notes to Myself

CAUTION ROAD
look left, right, left WATCH that Mercedes

CAUTION CANCER!
I smoke too much I know

CAUTION HIV
You had to go my love, you were too bad for me

CAUTION SCHIZOPHRENIA!! What a SHIT condition I’ve got, but I’ve just got to deal with it

“my God, how am I still alive?”

 

London West End

I sit clutching my blanket
Beside the empty crates.
I got me cigs and a packet of Rollos.
Don’t you know, I’m the Queen of England sitting here,
As I beam upon the world.

But as I wander the acres of my mind,
I’m touched – unprotected against a presence that reaches in –
He’s a dangerous friend
What has he seen with those eyes?
Spiritual, intense, unreadable…
Back from selling a few bikes in California,
He comes here to perform the ritual duties of a son,
Saying goodbye to his dead penniless dad.

 

 

Rachel wrote poetry, including lines for ‘London West End’, in her early twenties. She then stopped for many years and took up her interest again during this project at Creative Response in Bognor Regis. We re-edited the first poem, and she wrote and performed ‘Diary Notes to Myself’ at the ‘Warning: May Contain Nuts’ event in Brighton.