Dear Reader, I hope this letter finds you well. I’m not sure: not sure how to peel this apart, where to begin, how to launch into it all. I guess i’ll start by saying that I wrote a note on my phone (that i labelled ‘DRAFT’) for this on 7th November 2018, which feels like a fukin lifetime ago. the first line of that note reads ‘start with the last convo w S**** from whatsapp that time i was in Newcastle // a happy close // ~I’m so fucking grateful for my ex~’ and my god that’s a lie. ARIANA GRANDE / THANK U, NEXT I have deleted the whatsapp convo, cleared the chat, deleted his number, sent it to Gab so she can gatekeep any interaction i could possibly want to have with him. i have scoured my bedroom floorboards with bleach, put my bedsheets on the hottest wash, thrown his toothbrush in a skip down the road and packaged the polaroid of us (outside a club in Liverpool, Summer 16, Gab took the photo and when it came out the camera i put it straight in the back of my clear phone case and i didn’t take it out for the next 2 years) into an orange envelope and stuffed it in an old sketchbook that’s somewhere right at the back of my deepest desk drawer along with the card he wrote for me on our first anniversary, and the postcard he wrote me on our second. I am only 24 so excuse my melodrama when i say that this was the most monumental relationship I’ve had. I have never had someone know me that intimately. Never had i ever exfoliated in front of someone and expected them to still call me beautiful afterwards. ((n then when I turn, my face red raw, to the left so i can look him dead in the eye as he sat on the toilet)). Patted my best and most favourite Korean essence toner into someone else’s skin bc they complained about a dry patch near their beard. Never had i ever eaten raw jackfruit out of someone else’s hand, sat on the seat of a bus shelter in Ilford. Dead of night, waiting 20 minutes to get the nightbus, but still willing to wait in the cold while he popped into bossman’s shop to buy a fucking jackfruit slice, wrapped in clingfilm, to eat while we wait. Never had i ever actually had someone so insistent on loving me from the very first moment. I remember distinctly I didn’t want to fucking rush into love, to tell him how or if i felt, to hold him close after we fucked. {i actually pulled out the receipts for this u kno, opened the .zip file i kept buried on an old usb, of our whatsapp convo from the very beginning} {30/01/2016, 3:52am} He messaged me early on a sunday morning, like 4am or something stupid “are you asleep?” “we don’t have to pretend we don’t like each other, we’re not white u know” “I’m not called tom and i don’t wear supreme and skateboard and think i’m sick for smoking rubbish weed” “being aloof is lame” “be simran” “main tumhari raj banna chata hoon” 15 minutes go by “tu kaha thi pehli meri puri zindagi mein” When I woke up that same sunday morning i replied: “i don’t speak hindi what are you tryna say?!?!” he said, “ohhhh” “starplus dekhte ho ya nahi” I replied, “starplus has subtitles, you don’t” “eeeee” he waits like 20 minutes, i remember seeing him typing / n stop / n then typing again. “I just asked where have u been my whole life” ATIF ASLAM / JEENA JEENA / BADLAPUR /// and I swear to god I will never love a fucking libra again.//////// you know what, if u want a hot take, i’m not sure this is it, but with every ounce of sincerity: i really fucking resent Ariana Grande for being ok, for being fine, for feeling like she can thank Pete and Malcolm n Sean n whoever. bc i actually can’t thank S****, bc i fucking hate him. I wish i could, but I hate him so much with every fibre n ounce of my being. bc that conversation above sounds so fucking dumb, so naive, what a fucking asshole, how cringe, who tf does he think he is tryna chirpse me in hindi like he’s ranbir kapoor or even some fucking sideman like siddarth malhotra when WE ALL KNOW he is a Katrina Kaif (as in: we all think he’s secretly a Turkish imposter who can’t really speak Hindi so he has to be dubbed for all his dialogues lmaoooooooo) I feel stupid bc this worked. exactly 2 weeks later, on Valentine’s Day at like 11pm we came back to mine in an uber, and standing on the steps in front of my front door I said he couldn’t come in unless he was my boyfriend. and he took the keys from my hand and marched straight in and woke up my mum who was asleep on the sofa in the front room. The next day, 15th Feb, I posted a picture of two otters holding hands, asleep in a river, on instagram.I was a fucking idiot. I think i was just glad to be loved, regardless of who it came from. At the beginning he was so careless with his love, he threw it around like it was nothing (bc to him, it was! he Felt so easily) and that should have been a red flag, but i’m a fucking idiot. ~i keep reminding myself as i feel my eyes start to itch and my throat start to clench, that i don’t have to write about this. i could just write about something dry like that time i googled what relativism means n then i kept using the word ‘RELATIONAL’ in the wrong context until my dad said ‘what the fuck are you on about?’ n i flushed hot pink. But i think maybe there is something like a kinda therapy in this, something cleansing in having a captive audience who may j toss this letter in the junk box~
ARIJIT SINGH / CHANNA MEREYA / AE DIL HAI MUSHKIL now i’m writing this, tbh part of me can’t be arsed to pick the scab, and part of me (if we’re going with this metaphor) is not rly able to bc the scab has skinned over into a lumpy scar; also a part of me has forgotten the number of closenesses we shared. I think more than anything specific I can point to, I know we were close as I have never really been that close with anyone before or since. When i think of intimacy, no matter how much I absolutely seethe with anger now at the thought of him, he is the only example I have. I have never cared before, never loved before, never been close (or wanted to be). I think i resent that too now, or maybe i just resent that he has more examples of intimacy? that i am not exceptional or memorable in the same way to him, the way he was to me? I think most of all i am angry bc the only example i have of intimacy was a monumental waste of my time. For 2 n a half years I poured all the love i didn’t know i had into a hole and quite frankly i feel like i deserve reparations or a refund or at least like equitable division of assets (i feel like i should be able to take back something, like i should get 17 extra sundays and a brand new SAD lamp to compensate me). Like, I should get a rebate for all the times i still loved him despite how i thought it was weird how his bum was smaller than his head, how his fingernails made me feel ill most of the time, how i hated how obnoxiously loud he was whenever we were with my friends, how he never tidied up after himself when he was at my house and he’d leave cupboard doors open, how he was careless with my feelings and only loved me half of the time when it was easy, how he was absolutely fucking shit at being my boyfriend, how he was selfish as fuck in almost every way, how I told him secrets i’d never told anyone else and he looked back at me and told me i was fucking crazy rather than embracing me in my vulnerability. I loved him in spite of all of that, and i feel like i shouldn’t have had to but i did anyway, and i just kinda feel like i deserve something for that. like a John Lewis voucher or something. I j remember new year’s eve 2017, we were in his flat, he was playing songs on chromecast and he stuck on Channa Mereya n i j felt myself cringe kinda. bc that song felt trite or sticky. Like i have a t-shirt from Zara that says ‘ARE YOU IN A FILM OR IN REALITY?’ in big massive retro bubble letters, n i hate it so much bc the lack of irony (or lack of explicit irony) j like sticks to my teeth like sugar late at night, or like when u scratch the back of ur hand n the skin is dry so it leaves a line - STICKY. Maybe it was bc we weren’t alone in the room together, it wasn’t a private ~romantic~ sEnTiMeNtAL moment, maybe it was bc i felt like he was performing something rather than like,,, feeling something. It just rly made me angry. N i think i’m quite annoyed at that also. That now every time i listen to Channa Mereya, instead of it being a Good Solid Sad Breakup Song, like a Hindi version of a Dido anthem, it is instead a cringey reminder of that time i felt publicly embarrassed for someone else. Even though that is in itself a valid form of intimacy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LITTLE MIX / SHOUT OUT TO MY EX I think i am still angry about this all like.... omg wow nearly a whole-ass year later wow ok this is now officially petty. but i’m still angry about this bc he basically dumped me via text, but in person? i know that sounds quite mad, but it makes sense to me tbh. I woke up one morning and he’d texted me cancelling our date that evening with some excuse like ‘I’m really tired’ and i was like ‘...ok, what?’ ‘sure, but are you sure you’re ok? you’ve been rly weird recently’ to which he replied ‘yh, i’m fine’ ‘j tired baba’ n i was sure, deep in my gut i felt n knew that he was lying, so i asked again ‘are you sure?’ [...] and he finally replied ‘i’m not happy...’ ‘like, in our relationship’ So i asked him to still meet me that night bc obviously we had to talk about it, and he met me at 10pm in an indian restaurant down the road from my house and told me that he had just stopped loving me. he couldn’t place it, he didn’t know why, he just did. and every time i asked him where this was coming from, what did he mean, wtf bro? he told me ‘you can’t convince me to stay in this relationship’. So i’d woken up that morning with a boyfriend I loved n adored, and i’d gone to sleep that night single and confused - if that’s not being broken up with via text in person, idk what is. Bc like, ok i get it. Thank u, next is a power anthem bc of its ubiquitous wisdom: the metaphor of meeting someone new, BUT, #plottwist, it’s urself, and you’ve moved on (to a new phase of good singlehood where you are satisfied in ur own presence) the idea of finding self-fulfillment, and satisfaction from within, from ur rich and powerful inner life. the idea of learning from each interaction and never having lost something, only gained in experience, knowledge and tbh love spent is not love squandered. it was not all a waste, it meant something at the time. The only problem is, i don’t think that’s fucking true. ok, ye maybe the first half is, but I think love, tenderness, intimacy, all that can absolutely be pissed up a wall and wasted. I remember when he was breaking up with me, the restaurant had closed and we were sat in my car, and i said to him ‘i lowkey feel like the past 2 years have just been a colossal waste of time’, and he got really angry and offended. he said (if u ask me, quite patronisingly) ‘ONE DAY, MAYBE YOU’LL SEE THAT THAT ISN’T REALLY TRUE.’ and i realised why he was giving me so little in return: bc even while he was breaking up with me, he still wanted me to like him. i think in his mind, the ideal break up would be like, he says ‘i don’t love you any more’ n i reply ‘omg that’s totally cool, nbd, we’re still cool, you still wana go see that film when it comes out next month? bc we can totally still be frendz’. he didn’t want me to hate him. n even though in that moment I was being broken up with in a really shitty way, by someone i adored, I pitied him. throughout the time S**** and i spent together, i wrote through this intimacy we shared. writing Feb 2016 - May 2018 on the white pube was all tbh thru the lens of my life, and thru that i documented my intimacy w another person. and i think even though i am angry that S**** is my only real or solid reference point for intimacy, i am thankful for my ex (to an extent). I think, tbh, i have to be; if i was hoping to write academically or reservedly about ~intimacy~ as a removed, detached phenomenon i’d be doing myself a dishonesty. I am only able to explore intimacy as a subject or its tactile qualities thru my own descriptions of the taste of it. I have learned that intimacy is slow, silent, still. my favourite kind is the softly-spoken intimacy of weekly vlogs and skincare empties videos on youtube. ASMR has become a faux-intimacy being performed. intimacy is valuable bc it is finite, and i think it almost always must end. It is q flimsy, delicate, flighty. sometimes you share it with ppl who quite frankly do not deserve it. the most valuable intimacy you can know is with yourself, with pain or with healing. i think also, closure is the shattering of the grips intimacy can make you beholden to itself with. I think i am prone to melancholy and getting tangled up in my own feelings and sometimes it is nice to shatter things and pierce the film on them, for my own sake, for the sake of my own intimacy w the deeper recesses of my mind n sinew n synapses, nerves, joints n tongue. it is a valuable exercise to hold something up and whisper, ‘are you a farce?’, even if you put it straight back down and apologise for ever questioning it in the first place. This is just the metaphorical final day of my emotional juice cleanse maybe. My heart and the heavens cried, I will feel this intimacy again with someone more deserving. I have been in bloom before, and i will blossom a thousand times over again. my notes/‘DRAFT’ says: ‘[pull quotes RE: him from twp texts from the beginning to the end]’ n honestly who’s got the time to go trawling through them for that. but i do remember that there was a period when i kept using the metaphor/likeness of a scab to describe art that felt raw and intimate; bc that was my experience w intimacy, internally in the world, apart from the external of art. that’s what intimacy w him felt like throughout; like different variations of picking a scab not yet ready to bleed. leaving it red raw and oozing. It doesn’t sound cute but i think it is true, really honestly. 14th June 2018, 1 month after we broke up (we hadn’t seen each other or spoken since he stormed out of my car as it was parked outside the indian restaurant). I was in the departures gate in Dublin airport, me n Gab had about 20 minutes to go before we could board our flight, and while she read through some emails, i sorted out my own personal life admin. I texted and asked him if he’d like to go for a drink bc i’d quite like to speak to him, and i needed to give him back some of his stuff (and he had some stuff of mine ofc too). He said, ‘no thank you, i think I made the right choice, i don’t want to get back together’ (in so many words) I replied, ‘ok? me neither, that’s ...not what i wanted to talk about...’ and we just had the conversation over whatsapp [[[[ b e l o w ]]]] S****: I just...didn’t feel the way I used to S****: And I’m sorry Zarina: I don’t think u need to be sorry for that Zarina: I j wish you’d told me sooner rather than string me along n like Zarina: Do damage to me in that way? Zarina: By making me feel like I wasn’t worth seeing or spending time with S****: I'm sorry S****: It wasn't like that S****: I had to be sure Zarina: Had to be sure about what? S****: That it was the right thing to do S****: To end it Zarina: Ok I get that Zarina: J idk why u wouldn’t j talk to me bout it rather than let me think I was the problem? [...] [3 minute gap, no text] Zarina: look, it doesn’t rly matter anyway Zarina: Cool, take care friend. I’ve appreciated the 2 n a bit years we spent together Zarina: I have grown w u n valued the love u did give me Zarina: I am not sorry for it, j glad to have had it while I did Zarina: Truly wish u the best as u go on n maybe see u again S****: I would love to be ur friend one day too : ) x
The White Pube is the collaborative identity of Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad under which they write about art and curate. Based online at thewhitepube.co.uk and on Twitter and Instagram as @thewhitepube, the writers have gained an international readership and an involved social media following due to their success in diversifying the identity of the art critic, and making criticism newly relevant and accessible. The White Pube operates out of G+Z's respective cities of Liverpool and London.
Kindly supported by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership
Design: Daniella Shreir
Editors: Eleanor Jones & Bryony White
Editorial Assistant: Erin Cunningham