ivorypidgeon

[ivorypidgeon]

And On The Eighth Day

And on the eighth day

God made New York,

And everything far and in between,

Thus I spoke,

To my coffee cup that never runs dry,

In this diner down by the Lex,

My mind has been off it, the -

They don’t joke when they say the city doesn’t sleep

My eyes haven’t closed in over 30 hours,

That same glare I recognise in the fluorescent glass,

Thinking of her, thinking of New York

Soaked, coarsed and poached in my double denim,

I think of past ramblings 

In the city with you,

That beloved smell of concrete, grease and gas,

Hardened by steel, a cigarette and a spliff on a sun-beaten court in Chinatown,

Overlooking the giant burning meteorite in the sky,

I think of,

The blue ink staining my napkin,

I think of,

Getting my hair braided behind a deli on Graham,

I think of,

Coconut oil cakes topped with condensed milk,

Oh, my desire,

In this little garden of Eden,

Where I drink from the fountain of my youth,

Purple capes dancing in the wind,

Smiling, for this glorious picture day,

Grins all over the town,

Drums bang and the Washington Arch vibrates,

One nation under one groove,

What is this,

Like ballet dancers, they float, 

Top off like a convertible,

Top off like I just got laid out on the checkerboard,

One deep breath before I,

Spout off again and tumble through the weeds in this grand wondrous endless painless plain,

In the centre of my heart,

I clasped on that necklace,

I held on to that love, my want and our lack,

Permanent like the pyramids of Egypt,

Permanent like this frightened moment of oneness - my loneliness,

Preserved without air,

Under the ground straggling for room in this infinite sarcophagus,

The skulls of millions lining the countless steps,

Our blood splashed over this mighty flag,

And His naked body, Justice, hammered on a perpendicular wood beam,

A cross for us to all bear,

This mighty city,

With its resounding chaos,

Sprawling over the pavement searching for one more meaning,

To this untiring fabled story we call life

I’m thinking of,

I’m thinking of the biiiiiiig city.

Even when the rainclouds come,

I’m still swinging by the telephone poles,

To hear you say, you’re in love with this guy,

If not, I’ll just —

After all, I’m living, learning, stumbling,

Side by side,

So you can hear me scream,

Hallelujah all the way from the upper west side,

Just one postcard memory,

Scrawled over my face in a mirror in a bathroom in a bar in Brooklyn,

Then back on the subway with a new friend or two or three,

Shaking with the streetcar we found in the Hudson,

But wait,

Please remember that…

If I lost your love,

I’d never want to let you down,

Never want you to forget this loveliness,

That we found in the bottom of the takeout box,

Or the end of a joint we rolled a summer ago,

As we barrel down the 390,

Thinking how did we get here,

How do we fix this,

And my chalk cracked on the asphalt,

I’m sorry,

         I’m thinking offffff,

I’m thinking of the trees that line your backyard,

The smell of fresh cut grass and a grill burning, billowing smoke,

As the sprinklers crack and splinter into your dog’s gaping jaws,

I’m thinking of,

The smooth plain we call your abdomen that I laid my head down,

Waiting for that midnight bodily howl that we found in your dashboard next to the

Red Stripes we found by a lake that sat near the highway 405,

I’ve come, come from miles away,

Just to see you,

Hear you say those words again,

Like, I love you or something like that,

My word and your bond,

And I’m not just cheering from the bleachers,

When I jump across the base and run all the way home,

Back into your everlasting arms,

       I’m thinking of,

Chapels on mountains,

Maple syrup hills and the hum of your car like it just needed

some love,

This summer camp madness got us going crazy

Had us singing to the birds,

Like we were barking mad,

Like we were swimming, waiting for the shit just to hit me,

Waiting for the pollen clouds to wash over us and send us adrift,

Over these worlds of wheat and fields of grain.

On these cemetery blues,

And some wild pony ashes,

Got my top off like a ‘Vette,

Thinking of the first night we met,

Head in my hands then hand in hand,

Cruising down the interstate and rumbling through my woven hairs,

I thought I had already seen it like a deer caught in the headlights

In this room, we are empty,

Under this moon, we are one

Down Crescent Avenue,

Under the rusted bridges,

And the chemtrail candy skies

All these dreams, my memories

One order of a burger, milkshake and fries then

Waking up without you,

Back to the tarred monoliths,

And then the white sky,

But until I see you again,

Drive safe.

[ivorypidgeon]

WALKING THE PLANK: OR HOW I LEARNED TO BE LONELY IN THE BIG CITY

For a while, I would just stare at the deep end. 

I had my feet ​​clenched at the cold blue tiles. I had grown friendly with the chlorine swirling 

around my lungs, but 

I hadn’t got used to the cold.

Today, the pool was empty, a joyrare sight. 

Like a sheet of glass, the surface shone, mirroring the darkwood ceiling glown from the lights underwater.

Nothing could break this crystal moment, not even a whisper, on this 

one 

tender 

moment.

When I am ready, I held my breath 

and plunged.

20 years of schooling then out with a rented gown, a no-case degree, and a new bout of self-doubt - 

my first thought was -   

'Is this it?'

I wasn’t expecting to have things figured out after I had left. I had been going with the flow in life up until the pandemic hit, then after a self-pedagogic 9 months of solitude, sobriety and self-flagellation, 

followed by another few years of trying to keep my head above the water.

I got my degree, a nominal stamp, many thanks to Pakistani CAD YouTubers over my professors.

Now, I got a salary, a job, a place. I could be grateful. 

“I won”

My parents think so at least.

I should be jumping for joy but honestly, it feels like it doesn’t really matter. 

Part of me thinks it’s because I spent so much time indoors - I had a block of time that was just that, you know? 

A block of time. 

With no new memories, no real conversations, no doing anything, just a lot of nothing.

It’s hard to think we saw the collapse of so many systems in the world then after we had to just get back to where things left off. To get back to working a 9-5 in an office building. Go back to fighting and peckering over every fucking thing. Get back to falling for the same old tricks.

Back to how everything was. 

To me - it all felt so fragile after. 

Like we had built so many things and forgot to give them any meaning.

When you first dip your toes into the water, for a split moment, it’s like skirting on ice. 

The cold tickles its way up to your knees. 

You feel your spine retract and snap back from the shock. Your chest tightens and your lungs flatten.

But you get used to it. 

When you’re in the pool, nothing matters but your next breath.

The streets are not as barren anymore but they somehow feel lonelier. 

I walk these streets but I fear to call them my home. 

Each alley is another soundstage treadmill of hundreds of voices chattering in succession and me splitting across the crowd. I stand on the train and wait for the eyes to meet mine, tell me you understand that inexplicable feeling, 

that empty feeling that feels like bricks.

I am alone

…or am I?

Ironically, it feels like loneliness has never been so popular. 

Despite The Driver, Travis Bickle, Patrick Bateman, The Joker, and Officer K from Blade Runner 2049 already being huge cultural entities in the modern age, 

they have taken on a new form online - becoming motifs and avatars for masses of young audiences, reskinning their original contextual meanings to be used to relate to being sad, alone, depressed, 

and what have you.

Lexicon has expanded to match this - 

“real”, “literally me”, “it is what it is” trend regularly on TikTok, 

soundtracked to slowed-down tracks from Duster, Deftones, Aphex Twin, and Vacations.

One half of it is fun and games under layers of irony, the other half of it speaks to a 

worryingly sad but growing “statistic” that is actually 

desperate cries for help.

Over 50,000 people participated in The BBC’s 2018 global survey on loneliness. They found that 40% of people between ages 16 to 24 reported feeling lonely very often—the largest group to do so, and 13 percentage points higher than in other age groups. 

In a survey of 1000 people, Harvard Graduate School of Education found that 61% of young people ages 18-25 reported experiencing profound loneliness—including feeling lonely all the time—compared to only 36% among other age groups.

It doesn’t make sense.

In the post-Internet age, we are more than ever connected. 

For virtually nothing, we can call up anyone - have a chat and ask if they want a cup of tea yet why do we feel so isolated and alone? 

Or is it just me? 

In theory, our world has gotten smaller. Lines between communities and people can be drawn out in the sand. You could even engage in conversation with a president or a former terrorist all with a few taps on Twitter.

It's interesting to note that the largest segment of Instagram users, about 45.7%, have between 1,000 to 10,000 followers. Meaning most people have hundreds, if not thousands, of people within reach online. 

But do these numbers feel really real?

1000 followers might seem like a drop in the bucket but if you rounded up 1000 people and put them in a room together, it may feel different. Imagine seeing each person, hearing them. Asking how their day was. 

It’s almost as if behind the screen - we can lose our humanity. 

While our online platforms can provide opportunities for exposing ourselves to way more people than we could have ever imagined, the bottom line is they don't necessarily translate into genuine qualitative relationships even though they may present themselves to be.

How many of your followers are your friends?

How many friends does it take to feel happy?

The words on the video dotted on me, interrupting my session of doomscrolling.

"If you needed to call someone and tell them about your bad day, with no context beforehand, how many people could you call?" 

I stared at the screen, realising the answer was: not that many. 

It made me pause, feeling the weight again. And as I found myself typing how do i make freinds" into the search bar, I couldn't help but wonder how many others felt the same way.

After a deep breath, I enter again and spread my arms to the sides, planting my feet on the side wall, 

I tense up and then launch off. 

Gliding across the water, the only thing I can think of is 

what comes next. 

I don’t know how to float. 

I never actually learnt how to tread water.

“People out here, man, they walk everywhere, we make all this money and go home with nothing in our hearts or our minds. Nobody to share anything with” 

I had just met Mike on a park bench in SoHo. He sat next to me with his French Terrier sitting in his lap. 

I had asked him if he ever got lonely and he told me how he was a ‘self-anointed incel’.

“It’s hard to find much in the city. I was soooo depressed, dude. I think I'm still a bit lonely sometimes but I’m starting to feel better. Things changed after I hit the mat, you get humbled real quick. I fear nobody now, not even myself” 

-Why do you like jiu-jitsu

“It gave me a sense of purpose, for sure. I have my rolling buddies now, we go out even after we roll, it’s nice to do something, you know? I really just had to put myself out there. I had watched all these videos of people doing jiu-jitsu online, but it doesn’t compare for when you’re on the mat”

His dog whined. Her name was Pepper.

“Her full name is actually Pepper V2. She’s named after her mom. I got her during COVID from my aunt.” 

-She seems really sweet.

“Yeah, she’s great, she definitely keeps me in a lot of company. Maybe you should get a pet?”

My head dunked under the current again and through my goggles, 

I glugged to find the end of the pool. It looked a mile away but I was so close, I could feel it.

I could felt my palms wrapping around the barrier, 

that first breath.

One of those evenings came. 

Where you sit at the end of the bed and stare and think. It’s the weight again.

And I just got embalmed in my own thoughts. I stared at my face in the mirror, 

“Put 

Myself

Out 

There.”

Why did it feel so hard? I had been debating sending the invites for a housewarming party for nearly 10 minutes. The thought of rejection stung, I couldn't shake the fear of sending a message and not receiving a reply.  Closing my eyes, I hit the send button. 

I closed my eyes and made the invitations, maybe I’d feel like Gatsby, but the thought was better than a night alone with me and my shadow.

The last few lunges feel like they could kill you. 

If you didn’t know the end was near, you could probably keep going longer than you thought. 

You feel each muscle ripple in your back, 

every tendon push and shove, your lungs shake.

And you take one last

gasp.

I had made everyone a cup of tea. 

-Would you like lemon-ginger, chamomile, rooibos, peppermint, chai, valerian or berries?

There were deli slices earlier, some cheese and a baguette - it’d all been reduced to crumbs. 

The remaining plums and peaches danced around the table like ambrosian morsels 

just waiting to be eaten. I was on my bed in the same position as before but watching these people.

All these people that had given me their time, their day, and their energy just to see me.

How could I say I don’t have friends?

Here, I am surrounded by beautiful amazing people, all these people.

These people have supported me in ways I had forgotten when I was at my lowest. 

All these people.

Maybe it’s easy when you’re down to forget there’s people who have always been there,

Supporting you, giving you love, help, their time.

There’s people there who need you.

I wish I remembered on my twelfth birthday, my sixteenth birthday, April 5th of 2018.

I will not forget now.

The next morning, I walked the park alone with a book in hand - I didn’t bother to open it.

I just sat and stared.

The trees whistled a chorus of swaying leaves and the sky beamed back at me. 

What a beautiful blue. 

Children laughed and chased each other. There was a basketball game going on and I listened to the crowd's oohs, ahhs and cheers. 

I could smell the bluebells and they filled me with the sweetest joy - a euphoria I can still remember.

I couldn’t paint it for you.

Maybe all I needed was to 

touch grass.

My fingertips finally felt it. 

The edge, the big beautiful hard edge. I curled my fingers and pulled.

Air doesn’t feel sweeter than this.

Your heart never feels more alive than this.

You feel every part of you 

take in that first breath,

And just like that, 

it’s over. 

And you’re ready to go again.

Editor’s Note

i have no enemies

[ivorypidgeon]

FASHION & SHELTER

Before you can speak, you must hide your nakedness.

In 2023, rent and house prices reached an all-time high while earnings, for the most part, remained stagnant. As houses have been amalgamated from commodities to investment opportunities, 

young people worldwide have entered a state of chaos - 

the housing crisis. 

In recent times, we have become acquainted with many- a-crisis yet 

the housing crisis has always struck me as the most painful, the most wincing. 

A grievance, I have personally understood, having previously made a house out of other’s beds, couches, sublets, train stations and floors.

There is no big mystery as to why many people do not have homes, housing is not a human right 

and the people who could help - aren’t helping.

Aside, the concept of the home is changing. 

The would being increasingly digital, - our sense of self has become fragmented across physical and online spaces, tour physical environment does not dictate much about our identity, 

now more than ever.

Many have found abstracted forms of security online, 

seeking refuge in digital personas.

Groups that were once pushed to the fringes of society, now blossom with hives of users worldwide providing a sense of community that often cannot be found locally. Newer parts of mainstream culture show this trend - veganism, incels, anime, alternative medicine, and meme culture are all at the forefronts of Internet culture - simultaneously occupying and competing with a million other societies.

Most would agree that a home needs a sense of belonging, safety, and security. 

Shelter must affirm our sense of belonging and hide us from danger.

In this context, young people can find these senses within the digital world and aim to replicate the experience in real life.

The physical becomes the temporary present, 

the digital becomes the aspirational future. 

In this context, fashion’s penetration into the post-Internet psyche has taken on a new significance, 

as it not only serves as a means of self-expression but also as a way to connect our physical and digital worlds. Through its visual nature, fashion has become a way to curate and self-promote our idealised online personas, 

allowing us to create a somewhat cohesive and consistent image across both our physical and digital worlds. 

By embracing fashion as a means of connection, we could further bridge the gap between both planes of existence, and create a more integrated sense of identity in the digital age.

Fashion, as it stands, in the current day is heavily centred on persona, identity and image than ever before. 

Brands no longer compete in the space of billboards and magazines but in between photos of your friend’s latest dog update and videos of your brother’s wedding.

In the online arena, brands use these to communicate to buyers and potentials that if they were a person, this is where they would spend their free time, this is what they eat, these are their friends and they’re as real as you and I. 

Balenciaga is an edgy friend from Berlin, and Gucci is a cousin that just discovered cottagecore.

Is this nefarious or just an evolution of how we already associate brands?

On that point, young people who grew up with the Internet have used fashion to develop different personalities and interests, fashion becomes an entry point for subcultures to be entered and returned to with little to no friction. 

You’re excused for buying the Off-White safety belt in 2014, a skateboard in 2016, or the dress -that-must-not-be-named in 2020.

You weren’t entirely a victim of marketing, you were probably just bored.

You don’t necessarily need to drive to the furthest thrift store in your town and ask for old flannels and mud-stained jeans anymore. You can buy them on Amazon

and be grunge for a day. 

And tomorrow, you can dress like Paris Hilton.

The average person is buying 60 per cent more clothing than 15 years ago, while each item is kept for only half as long.

All this spending on clothes…

Do appearances really matter that much?

Within seconds of meeting a person, the brain already picks apart their body, body language, their mouth, speech, their eyes, and eye contact. 

A study by Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov, titled "First Impressions: Making Up Your Mind After a 100-Ms Exposure to a Face" 

found that people make judgments about someone's personality based on their physical appearance within just 100 milliseconds of seeing their face. 

The researchers found that people are more likely to perceive someone as 

trustworthy, competent, and likeable if they have an attractive appearance. 

Another study by Hajo Adam and Adam D. Galinsky found that people consistently judge others based on their clothing choices. 

The researchers found that people make assumptions about someone's personality, social status, and even their job based on the clothing they wear. 

The study also demonstrated how wearing different types of clothing can affect a person's behaviour, confidence, and performance on tasks, concluding that clothing can have a symbolic meaning, affecting a person's psychological state and cognition.

Then we say, appearance matters. 

And does our fashion affirm our identities or hide our true selves?

Does the soldier who wears his army uniform to Walmart wear the uniform to affirm his identity as a symbol of service or to hide his disconnection from civilian life?

Likewise, does a sorority sister dress like her friends to affirm that she belongs in her community

or to hide her personality?

Similarly, shelter operates to hide the true self from the outside world. 

Even in The Fall of Man, after Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, 

they become aware of their nakedness and feel shame. In an attempt to conceal their bodies, they hid from God, hastily fashioning cloths from fig leaves. 

Then they were banished, to leave their idyllic home of the Garden of Eden for the wilderness.

In this way, fashion works like shelter, to affirm and to hide.

At home, you can hide. At home, you can be yourself.

I had these thoughts over the course of 13 days as I entered a whirlwind cacophony adventure to rent a room in the East End. The landlord, ‘a true geezer’ named Boris, no, Dave, no, Dan,

 a 65-year-old toddling man Cayman Islands resident with 100 names that led to no end.

The house was a beautiful yet dilapidating Victorian build. A real charmer, yet a husk of what was once probably very beautiful, now clad with peeling wallpaper, cobwebs, and about a thousand health and safety violations.

Boris, Dave, or Dan (whatever his name was) summoned my newfound Spareroom pen pals and me with No Caller ID, then insisted we pay a deposit upon entry. His wife in a long hooded puffer jacket sat in the corner chewing her fingernails, swearing that despite the heating not working, us not coughing up a deposit would be a terrible thing for us.

After demanding heating, we were ghosted and left back on the property search hoopla, which had already been 4 months of web-surfing, bidding wars, and cosying up with the sleaziest real estate agents you could imagine.

I eventually found my place, pulling up to the viewing with all my belongings in bags - 

demanding that the room was mine, and not leaving until every paper was signed.

In the weeks leading up to this article being written, I met Kieran* near Whitechapel Station. 

Kieran had been living without a home for nearly 6 months.

I told him about my essay and he told me how his clothes had played a crucial role in his daily life.

Wearing multiple layers meant storage and staying warm during cold nights. 

A hoodie or a beanie, could help him blend in with the crowd and avoid being harassed by police.

The clothes he got from local shelters and community organisations, had let him go to some job interviews without a worry.

He said that when he was first homeless, he felt like he had lost himself. 

He just got a favourite jacket and he wore it almost every day, which made him feel more confident and more like himself. 

Without a house, clothing is not just a matter of practicality but also a source of 

comfort and self-expression. 

Ultimately, fashion in the present day is more than a tool. It is an important aspect of our identity, our self-worth and our feeling of belonging within a world that can sometimes feel ever so outside of our reach. 

Ultimately, our understanding of this will allow us to fulfil deeper connections with our objects as we, consciously or not, already place a high level of significance on their relation with our lives.

I close this essay to thank everyone that gave me shelter. 

Every girlfriend’s room,

every friend’s failed sublet, 

every train operator,

every couch,

every floor, 

every shed,

every floor.

I am grateful now to have a place I can call my own.

Thank you.

Editor’s Note

According to The Tower Hamlets Council, Kieran* is now living in a council estate in Stepney Green.

His name has been changed in this article to respect his privacy and his account has been given with written consent.

For the remainder of the year, I have decided to support Crisis UK, a non-profit organisation that provides housing and support for people experiencing homelessness. To show my commitment, I will be donating 10% of my salary to the organisation.

I strongly believe everyone deserves a place to call home. While donating money is not the only way to help, I hope that my donation can make a positive impact on someone's life. I encourage others to join me in supporting organisations like Crisis UK, as together we can work towards ending homelessness and building a better future for all.

1 Homelet. (2023). Homelet Rental Index. [online] Available at: https://homelet.co.uk/homelet-rental-index

2 Petrosyan, A. (2023). Digital population. Available: https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/ digital-population-worldwide/

3 Remy, N., Speelman, E., & Swartz, S. (2016, October 20). Style that’s sustainable: A new fast-fashion formula. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-insights/style-thats-sustainable-a-new-fast-fashion-formula