Three Words In

I ran the set on the bus. Mouth moving under my mask like a nutter.

The opening is good. It does what it does. The dying bit. The Manchester bit. The bookshop bit. I can feel them land even in my own head. That part I trust.

The middle though. The car park bit. I got three words in and I heard it. I heard me turn into the version of me that explains a thing. The version I hate. The one that says what a joke means. Why would I do that. Why do I always do that.

I got off one stop early. Walked the rest. Tried it again out loud on the street like a weirdo.

It was worse.

That is the bit of today that I do not want to write down. So I will write it down.

The opening is fine. The middle is the problem. The problem has a name. The name is the bit. The bit is me. I am the thing that is wrong with my own set and I cannot joke my way past it tonight.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not.