"Shocking! I'm 15 and I've slept with men over 300 times! Shocking!"

There is a youtube subculture that brings out the most striking stories that really look like literature - and that is the greatness of reality, or at least the greatness of poorly-staged talk shows.

There is something fruity and appetizing in these low-rate urban stories of weary mums and live-fast die-young teens that haunts me when marble-bust writers lower their guard on me, and I think I can explain why.

Some years ago I got across the story of Victoria Thompson, a 15-year-old nymphette who had unprotected sex with more than fifteen men over three hundred times. What was really remarkable about that, was the way the presenter filled his mouth with such numbers, as if they were chocolate-flavoured. He would repeat over and over again "THREE HUNDRED TIMES" in the most sensationalist way it could be uttered. His mouth was stuffed with amazement and dark joy, and it all was as disgusting as appealling.

Victoria's mum, called Vicky (powerless version of her little one's name), appeared on the screen whining about her daughter's unstoppable sex drive, humilliating herself before the eyes of millions of Americans. It turns out Victoria wanted to have a baby no matter what, and we all know there is not enough birth control in this world to stop such desires. This lady's mum said "I caught Victoria not one, or two, but three times, naked in my bed, having sex". I mean, was little Victoria supposed to be wearing her underwear if she was having sex...let's get our facts straight. And what about that marvelous "not one, but two"... Would Shakespeare be proud of that?

Troublesome Victoria showed up on the show. She was booed by the audience the minute she put her feet on the studio, but her "I don't care" attitude sustained her in a nearly heroic way. She was a blonde-bleached Julius Caesar! facing her mum! facing the world! facing morality! What a joyful contradiction she was, this barefoot mistress! this shooting star, this son of a gun!

Of couse, she added drama to the story. A tearful Vicky cried  while a photo of her daughter, dressed in white, probably in her First Holly Communion, was being projected on a screen behind her. Where were those days when her little daughter's libido was still asleep? Where were those "ew, boys" days?!

Victoria defined herself as a "player" and confessed to the stunned audience:

"I have had sex in public places
over a hundred times
I have had sex in a park 
in a mall,
in a playground 
and even on a staircase.
You don't care what people think about you?
I don't care what people think about me
I am who I am
that's all there's to it.
Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

And it is not a Charles Bukowski's poem.

Videoblog:"The Laughing Heart" by Charles Bukowski, read by Victoria Bardot

Little French poem

The subtle sensualité of French makes it a perfect language for poetry and whispering.
Probably inspired by the surroundings, I wrote a series of untitled little French poems during a trip to Lyon (France) in 2008. Of course their grammar is far from perfection - I am sure about it - however I did not intend to create flawless French poetry anyway - I think that little mistakes from a non-native speaker are charming, or at least I find them remarkably charming when a foreigner talks to me in Spanish.

Liberté, egalité, fraternité... et poètes maudits et révolution!

                                             ·

écrit a Lyon

quand j'ai quitté la ferme,
tous les animaux ont péri comme des saints,
un par un, le sang déversant sur ​​le sol,
le sol qui était vierge comme moi.

et pourtant, quand je suis retourné à la ferme,
et au jardin interdit et au blé flétri,
J'ai vu ma maison, encore embrassé
par la fidèle vigne.




Text: © Victoria Bardot, 2008
Image: movie still from An Education

brothel-in-law

I got my neon-lights baptism
the day I turned 21
and had sex at work,
in a second-hand wedding dresses shop,
my fellows telling me to do anal.

We are all love and rape offspring,
aren't we?
In this frantic dance of circumstances
sometimes you win,
other times you lose
but you are always playing.

I think of life as a vast minefield
where settling down means death
Anyway, boy, I have always liked bloody fireworks
I have always liked explosions under my knees.
Between twenty-pounds twenty-minutes love affairs
I chose to think about it as a minefield.

 -  © victoria bardot, 2013