wildscape. literary journal

Unsent postcards from London
by Naomi Ronner

Cornucopia

A pen in the colour gold. A Sunday “toast” (he’s not an English man). A bus ride to perhaps. My name, attached to a city; I like the sound of that. The scaffolding on Pembridge. All of the sudden, I want to wear heels; is that trad, anti-feminist? Support comes before the collapse. “Run girl run”— it echoes. Today, I asked a stranger if I’m addicted to drama. “Accidents will happen” (that’s Elvis Costello by the way). The sour white wine was accidental, just like the boquerones were accidental. Maybe the discrepant world views are also accidental; the matter oscillates between “sidenote” & “keynote”. Maybe somewhere in between, love can grow. I tossed a coin, prepared for the worst; being bailed on, again. A stray thought of me, how many times? I want to be scooped up from the wade in that hotel bed like..ice cream. Sex, the colour green sage. Lonely and glorious. Longing and beautiful. I’ll take a deep dive in the Thames; underwater touch. Baby come and get me. I’ll be at the Dickens museum.



Sidewalk-ballet

A beheaded streetlight. A woman in a pocket park; strawberries in her lap, never in flux. West Hampstead wrapped in the sound of reverb guitar. A house with everything blue; blue doors, blue elevators, blue lighting; all the blue embodied by humanity. A girl crouches on the sidewalk, camera trained on a ladybug. Two Roman pillars; the face of a river in between, life exquisitely static. A menu of quicksilver interactions, laid out like dishes. A keepsake upon re-entering the fast world.



City girlies

On the Bakerloo line with my extra-matured cheddar and my skimmed milk. Those Armani vintage trousers fit me like a glove. That’s such a brat-thing—taking an Uber to your morning shift. A bench for sitting—for the bullies, this time. Watch her. Them. The one with the broken heart, the hollow one. Watch all of these girls. Get familiar with the term “slay”. I dare you to impress us. Ditch the five year plan. Have a cigarette, bitch.



Field notes for you

There’s the boy biting into the gingerman, the mother, capturing this scene on her Iphone. Leonard Cohen hums in the corner of deduction games. There’s coffee and tea; old readers and young writers. Elevators and stairs. The dichotomy of “wow”. Spill, then mop what you’ve spilled, only to spill again; I left my secrets around Prudent Passage and Saffron Hill. Hannah and Lisa (I think that’s what they’re called) are talking about boys and babies. Everywhere, people’s belongings.




“Sprezzatura”, losing sprezza

Thinking about how to ‘unthink’ things, people. Avoid places with fake candles, the gods said. Apologies—just another kind of defense. The next stop is only ever just a stop. Another word for embroidery? Love. Prediction for 2025: a sheer dress will save the world from falling apart. Every woman has one in her closet. My life, remembered and archived on a laptop. Amor fati: wise, or spiritual demise? The fog swallows the London eye outside my window. Is that all there is to the fog? Men as mere souvenirs; dictatorial reminders of home. For now, I suspend judgement.


A copycat with a baby

I went to a church, then lit my first cigarette on this godforsaken island. Ate a donut to fill the hole in my stomach. Tried on a slip dress and imagined myself as a mother. I had run into her before—me as a mother. She acted like a close friend, a closest kind of self. But something about her unsettled me; like she was trying to emulate me. We both had ovaries and an ass. The difference? She—a baby in her arms. Aka “completed woman”. Competing with her would be an act of vanity. But for love, as weak as I am, maybe I would.

Soft crashes

 Sometimes I dream of falling off my bike, just so someone can kneel beside me, press ice to
my bruised knees, stitch the wounds open to the world. The harsh white lighting, illuminating
  absences I never named. If I had time to ‘unbecome’, I’d hang a chandelier in my 7m² room.
                                          I’d eat from someone’s fig tree……somewhere
                  ……a garden in Kensington (where all the rich people live),
                                                                                pluck their flowers and hand them to the poor. 	
                              Call it an ego-trip. 		                 		I call it charity.

                                                                “Every sinner has a future”. 

Before core-memories


Out of all feelings, feeling beautiful is the most volatile. I could be on top of the world, strutting on my hot-girl-walk, replaying our dynamic, the way I replay Caroline Polacheck songs: rock-paper-scissors, rock-paper-scissors. At some point I’d break—snap and then I’d arch my back, when you…you know and then I’d press my hips into the matras and say “that was so real”.
I
feel
beautiful.
But then there are other times, when I’m chilled in bed, like an iced-coffee, reading about sinkholes and microplastics. On a cake diet; making Wholefoods even richer. In those moments I could convince myself to fly across the sea, just to have a chamomile tea with someone’s sister; mother; lover. Sometimes, I need intimacy. To know I exist. I
can
be beautiful.

Lying darlings

It’s a Friday night. I’m staying in and making myself tteokbokki. I ran past Brunswick, nostalgically spied on the youth at Slim Chickens: braces, TikTok and too much foundation. What exactly makes us feel like adults? Meta clusterfucks usually do the trick. A whiff of sweet alyssum runs up my nose before I disappear into rush hour; into the bloodstreams of London. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a map; a key to all these lines and symbols? Secrets colonize these park benches and phone booths. What lying darlings they are. Who are “they”? You decide.




Vibe shift

I gladly ate his breadcrumbs. Shrieked for nauseating romance. Read a book about hate, that was actually about love. In a dodgy corner around Peckham I said a prayer. Arguing with fate, while it had told me to fuck off, a long time ago. After the pangs of intimacy came the pangs of remorse. After that, the slut pop. His style was always choppy. Girl could’ve known.
You must be somewhere in London.
You must be loving your life in the rain.
…
I don’t even think to make corrections.
Goodbye.

about the author // Naomi Ronner