Girl, Show Me That Body (Of Work)

Two readings as part of the FLINTA literature event series in Berlin, December 2024 and April 2025.

Extract from the reading I gave at the second Girl, Show Me That Body (Of Work). This is from the end of an essay called Two Sides of the (Love) Story.

I used to understand the world through simple heroes' narratives. Red Goodies vs. Blue Baddies. The Goodies boycott brands. Donate. Recycle. The Baddies, well, the Baddies love capitalism and hate immigrants and women. The Goodies and Baddies don’t really mix. Maybe once a year at a Christmas dinner table. State schools. At the polling station. In the line at Lidl. But mainly they remain separate, one group existing for the other only in their mind, their antithesis, formed for the purpose of strengthening their own sense of identity, their personal narrative.

Dating the hero of the Goodies, who waved his big red flag in one hand whilst dropping his litter on the living room floor for me to pick up with the other, parallel to my brother turning far darker than even a Tory Blue Baddie, mixed up everything I knew into a deeply bruised purple. 

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