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Me, Me, Me<\/strong><\/p>\n Sometimes I feel like a stranger in the town called Me. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Andrew McDonnell<\/strong> writes poetry and short fiction. He has a story ‘Breakfast by the Motorway’ in the Being Dad<\/em> anthology, due out today. He co-runs Gatehouse Press & Lighthouse Literary Journa<\/em>l.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Me, Me, Me Sometimes I feel like a stranger in the town called Me. I enter a bar and all the other me fall silent. The barman is familiar, he reminds me of me when I was younger. \u201cShandy\u201d I say and he shakes his head without speaking. \u201cIt\u2019s funny\u201d says the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[135,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10494"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10954,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10494\/revisions\/10954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI enter a bar and all the other me fall silent.
\nThe barman is familiar, he reminds me of me
\nwhen I was younger. \u201cShandy<\/em>\u201d I say and he shakes
\nhis head without speaking. \u201cIt\u2019s funny<\/em>\u201d says the me
\nnext to me, \u201cI haven\u2019t seen your face in here before<\/em>\u201d.
\nHe gives his ice a tinkle in the glass. \u201cI\u2019m new in town<\/em>\u201d
\nI say \u201cand I\u2019m lost. Do you know who I am?<\/em>\u201d I show him
\nthe wife and kid in my wallet but some weirdo has scratched
\nout their faces with a key. He turns from me to social media:
\n\u201cweirdo next to me has scratched out his wife and kid\u2019s faces<\/em>
\nwith a key, lol!<\/em>\u201d. I would never use \u2018lol<\/em>\u2019 I think,
\nand then remember all the times I have used \u2018lol\u2019<\/em>
\nor emoticons to show what I am feeling. (Mostly winks,
\nsome downturned mouths, occasionally a cat
\nreading a book). All the online me are now on the bar TV.
\nMissing says the caption beneath the photographs.
\nThe other me all watch me and shudder,
\nas if trying to shake off a cold. I drink my beer
\nand run my hand through my hair. Me pulls
\naway in horror, \u201ckeep your hands to yourself!<\/em>\u201d
\nI retreat to the jukebox, select a 7\u201d, it kicks in,
\nplays me singing in the shower something sweet
\nand sad like a wedding cake in bucket of sick,
\n\u201cI remember me<\/em>!\u201d I say, but all the other me are asleep
\nand it\u2019s time for me to go.<\/p>\n