Culture Slut: The Best Breakup
Make it stand out
Here we go again, Valentine’s Day and all the associated tawdry junk that goes along with it. This year feels like a fresh slap for me because I was happily in a long term relationship for the previous five, and it lead to me thinking about breakups and heartache as acts of self destructive empowerment. I remember my favourite ever Polyester event, Valentine’s Day HeartBreak Karaoke hosted by me at The Curtain in London, and participating in a panel discussion about breakups with glamour gal Honey Kinney. I have personal sorrow down to a fine art. I moped around the house listening to tragic music, I flung drinks out of windows, moisturised my skin with my own tears. I also made a zine after I caught a boyfriend cheating on me, chronicling my anger, trauma and sexual healing. I exhibited this zine (and an altar covered in the pages from it) in a gallery in Brighton with the now defunct Trace art collective. In going through my archives, I also found this great list on how to get over a break up that I think was included in the marketing for the show, and I was pleasantly surprised about how relevant it still is.
So as my Valentine’s Day gift to you, I present you with:
Top Ten Witchy Ways to Get Over Your Latest Breakup
1. PUT ON YOUR RED SHOES AND DANCE THE BLUES. Get ya best gals over and get into it. Dress up. Drink wine. Get high by the beach. Go out dancing. Let yourself have fun. That Boy stole from you; he tried to steal your time, your light and your soul. He might have sucked your spirits out through your dick/pussy, so imbibe more spirits, the ones that come from glass bottles. Drink vodka with devil and dance to Donna Summer.
2. TREAT YOURSELF BETTER THAN HE EVER DID. Hun, go wild with your pay check. Buy yourself a new dress, a jockstrap, a big ice cream, a massive pizza, anything you want. Treat yourself. Love yourself. So what if you maybe can’t give your mate back that tenner you borrowed last night at the bar, she loves you and understands what you are going through, she’d want you to buy those rose scented candles too if she knew how much your aching senses needed them. Your soul cures the senses, and your senses cure the soul.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
3. TELL YOUR MOTHER (AVE SATANI). Take that goddamn hoodie he gave you off/out of your bed and lay it on the ground. Light candles and encircle it with salt. Burn pink roses. Call out to the Eternal Goddess, the Divine Feminine, the Sacred Mother. Tell her what he did to you, how he hurt you, how he let you down, who he left you for, how he made you feel. Cry a little. Let the Goddess wipe your tears from your cheeks, lay your head in her lap and sleep. Don’t worry, Mother will protect you. She’ll send Holy Messengers to peck out his eyes whilst you dream of happier days.
4. LIVE YOUR BEST APHRODITE LIFE. You can watch my fat ass twist, boy, as I bounce to the next dick, boy. Make love with wild abandon. Go home with anyone you want. Don’t fuck with weak boys; get you someone who can make you feel again. Choose someone who will worship your cock, pray to your pussy, kiss your palms. Go wild. Piss on someone. Drink champagne out of an arsehole. Bring a few friends, make a weekend of it. Moisturise your skin with someone else’s juices. Look ABSOLUTELY GLOWING on that bus/taxi/street when you finally go home.
5. LAUGH IN THE FACE OF DEATH. Go out and buy yourself a dozen white roses. Put them in a vase in your bedroom where you can see them every day. Write down the name of That Boy. Hold it, and focus all of your feeling into the paper, all your anger, resentment, self-pity, even left over love that you have for him, let it be contained in this small scrap. Submerge it in the water of the vase, beneath the roses, leave it there, let it drown. White roses absorb emotional trauma and mental anguish. Every day, those roses will wither a little bit more, and so too will you pain. By the time the roses are dead, your sorrow will have ceased to exist. Throw it all out with the trash, and have a glass of Prosecco.
6. TELL ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS. I mean ALL of them. Tell them everything. Tell people you meet in bars. Tell people you work with. Tell the new friends you meet in the smoking areas of bars. Tell strangers on the street. Tell everyone exactly how awful That Boy is. Expose him. Reveal him. You are a beautiful, powerful being, a God-given ray of sunshine, and if someone has been so dark-sided as to actually hurt you, then he must be punished. Don’t let him slink around like he hasn’t done anything, hand in hand with his new victim. Let everyone know how awful he actually is. Throw a drink at him if you want to, it might make you feel better. You won’t know ‘til you try.
7. DON’T HATE THE OTHER WOMAN. That Boy left you for someone else, but that is no excuse to attack them. She didn’t betray you, like That Boy did. She didn’t let you believe that she loved you, like That Boy did. She didn’t cancel dates with you because she was seeing someone else, like That Boy did. She didn’t sleep with you one night and someone else the next, like That Boy did. Save your anger for That Boy. Save all your venom for That Boy. Don’t dilute your bile by splitting it with someone who means nothing to you. Save it all up so when you can finally spit in the face of That Boy, he can feel it burn like acid on his skin.
8. THE CURSE. May his sky turn black above. May he choke on another’s tongue. May he never fall in love. May he smother in his lust. May his desire turn stale. May his dreams turn to dust. May jealousy prevail. May a lack of faith disturb him. May the coldness of Love’s hand and its bitter distance confuse him. May he never understand. Let the image of my face pressed up against his face and the time that he was mine be burned into his mind. May he never fall in love.
“Make love with wild abandon. Go home with anyone you want. Don’t fuck with weak boys; get you someone who can make you feel again.”
9. WASH THAT MAN RIGHT OUT OF YOUR HAIR. Or better yet, cut it. Cut your hair off. Cut your hair as if you were slitting throats (new style, new you!). Shave it all off. Don’t let there be a single hair left on your head that he has touched. Take that hair and bind it around that scrap of a note he gave you once, the one with his number on it because your phone had run out of battery. Think about his dick, how he gave it to you, how it felt in your hands, how it felt pressed against you in bed. Burn it. Burn it with the flame from a black candle. Inhale the smoke from the paper and your own burning hair. Put the candle out with your spit. Congratulations, you’ve just put a binding spell on him, and now he can’t get any more erections.
10. LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE. Compile a 42 page zine of original content, photos, collages, hand written notes, personal texts, details of what he did to you, accounts of the men you slept with after That Boy, poetry, witchcraft and self-care. Exhibit it in a gallery. Sell it to your friends. Sell it to strangers. Feature it in international publications. Send it to be included in underground American fag punk zines. Send a copy of it to That Boy, go on, shove it right through his door at two in the morning. Write an accompanying letter to go along with it, drunk out of your mind, telling him how angry you were with him and how much better you feel now. Tell him this is your closure. Scrawl BASTARD on his front step, but with hearts instead of “A”s. Go home and sleep for two days. Delete his number. It’s over. You’ve healed.
Words & Collages: Misha MN
