…… and thinking about stocking fillers, this book is an excellent idea. I wrote it as part of my swimming pool show I did at Edinburgh Fringe in 2008. I’d received a £5,000 award and wrote a ten line poem, hence the title. The excerpt below was written as a voice over while I was underwater with a small air tank built and kindly donated especially for me by #Chrystal Palace diving shop. I went underwater in my sons dolphin duvet and when the voice over ended I came out of the water, like I was coming out of an embryonic sac (if you were on acid/mushrooms or E’s). My Scotsman review went something like “a peculiar cross between Tracey Emin and Josie Long”.
I was thinking about this when I was looking for Karen Millen yesterday, that’s why I got in a muddle. There is always a reason. In the light of this, and in the light of the press about Boris this week, here is the extract of the book (past performances underwater) that includes Helen and Boris.
Birth Story
Thank God it’s nearly over, its been really stressful here these last few months, growing, sudden UV lighting and shit music. If I ever hear “Building baby’s brains” or “Mozart” one more time I’ll do a stillbirth.
I wish she hadn’t given up smoking. I could do with a fag and I could murder a drink. Three glasses of shit CAVA at a wedding then dealing with her guilt for 8 months. That was worse than the gastroenteritis.
I’m really looking forward to going through that deep dark tunnel and getting into the pool. Soon I’ll be pissing in someone else’s water rather than my own stinky sac, and it’s getting pretty stinky in here. Just got to hold off from shitting, just for a few more minutes otherwise it could all go horribly wrong and I’ll end up with Dr Bari doing a ventouse, that’s what happened to my brother and he’s never recovered. They took him to a cranial osteopath but he’s still got a flat head. It’s difficult to air brush baby’s heads.
I’ve done my stretch in this old cell, some have made it through the other side – some haven’t. It’s pretty hardcore to survive in these conditions. It’s dark all the time and very basic. She could have done it up a bit, she’s 41, she’s had plenty of time, some pictures on the womb wall, wouldn’t have to be anyone too raunchy, Helen Mirren perhaps. An internal tattoo would have been nice, but maybe that would have stopped my concentration and deep exploration of my inner child.
Thank God the sex stopped. Most unsettling. Then all of a sudden, it began again and she started taking it up the arse. That was only two weeks ago and by then it had got so tight that I couldn’t move around, my arse was right by her arse. Doesn’t matter so much these days if I develop a liking for it, well, at least in this country, at the moment. But who knows what my life will be like.
I think I’ll be a poet when I grow up.
I’m a baby stuck in a womb
I’ll be out soon
Thank God they rolled the dice again
Otherwise Boris would have been my name
Apparently Boris Johnson’s buttocks are similar to those of Adolph Hitler’s
I heard that at a gig she did
That’s when the arse thing kicked off and my kicking stopped
Now it’s my turn to help her out
Otherwise she’ll have to shout – more
So, here we go, I’m really shitting myself now.
It’s Saturday, 4th November, am thinking rain, fireworks and sparklers yet pondering over the washing powder that these two chirpy young delivery men have bought me. (As you can see from the clock I haven’t put it back from last Sunday because it keeps us all on top of things and Tesco Delivery are even less likely to be late.)
Liz Bentley 