Glam and the ghetto (updated weekly)

The ting from Barking - Armani

I rolled over in my bed and pressed the home button of my phone that was charging on the floor beside me. The screen revealed to me that it was 06:13 in the morning. The crows had barely batted the sleep out of their eyes and this guy was at it again for the second time that night and probably the 10th time that week!

"AHHHHH, UHH, UHH, AHHHHHHH! Oh Fuck, Oh Fuck, Oh gooood!"

Oh shut the hell up. She sounded like she was in the latent stages of labour, there was no way that hoe was really actually enjoying the dicking that my overly zealous flatmate was giving her. And he clearly didn't know the difference between a women who is violently cumming and a women who is just experiencing violence. The louder it is doesn't mean the better it is. But what did they know about the art of pleasure and what did I care? I had been in bed for a mere 2 hours since finishing my shift as a bottle girl at LA Lounge and all I wanted was a a few hours of good shut eye before I would have to get up again and work my day shift at Nandos. Serving peri peri to the hungry civilians of east London for minimum wage was not my first choice of careers. I had so many goals and expectations for my life as a teenager. Never would I have guessed back then that my mid-twenties would look like this. Living in a two bedroom house share with my roadman roomie who's libido sounded as if it was about to bust a hole in the plasterboard wall that separated his room from mine. Finally his weekend link stopped howling and I assumed it would be safe to resume sleep now that he had got his nut.

I tried to close my eyes tightly shut but the light from the the early morning sunrise was intruding through the the cheap translucent curtains that the landlord had probably purchased from wilko's and that I had not found it in my budget to change. I looked at the time on my phone again, it was almost 7am. I knew that if I didn't sleep soon I would be like an extra from the walking dead for my afternoon shift but my thoughts kept transporting me back to my failed achievements and struggling ambitions.

What I wanted most in life was to make my mother proud. I knew how hard it must be for her. A single parent of three living in one of the most expensive cities in the world with an immigrant education just trying to make ends meet week by week. She had come to England from Barbados as a young adult, just younger than me with only a few hundred pounds, a 6 month old baby and the earnest will to succeed. 28 years and two divorces later she found herself in her middle age with an eldest son who was in and out of jail more than J hus, a 10 year old daughter who was always glued to her smartphone and a 24 year old daughter who had just about passed university with a 2:2 in sociology, leaving her with very little career options and a fortune of unsettled debt.

I was the only one she had that could really support her with the outrageously high bills of her rented three bedroom shed of flat, which meant that it was difficult for me to save money to buy the dream home I had always fantasied about living in. A lavish and luxurious 4 bedroom penthouse overlooking the star lit city, maybe in Docklands, Canary Wharf or could you imagine, Kensington! All of that seemed so far out of reach now, especially with the soaring house prices in the capital and the build up of anxiety I was having from thoughts of how little sleep I was going to have that day working my minimum wage job, with my dickhead, power tripping manager.

I could slowly feel the lids of my eyes slightly stinging as they weighed heavier with exhaustion. I started to think about what life would be like when my modelling career took off and I was living in my penthouse suite with my sexy mahogany man who was either going to be a famous rapper who spat a hot 16, a 6ft plus ball player with killer skills like Ronaldo or on iced out foreign driving bad boy who banged elite fraud. These thoughts felt like nostalgia. Like warm Horlicks on a cold December night, cuddled up to your mum who was actually home for the evening and not at work.

Although these thoughts may seem like fantasies for some, they were endearing images to me. Full of hope and inspiration to help me to carry on each day in this rat race. Without my dreams the only thing I had left was the troubling nightmares of working a slave system for nothing. Dealing with incompetent managers and rude customers just so that in 20 years time I would look back and see that my biggest accomplishment was having a couple kids and moving down the road from my mums house to a council flat? That was the kind of reality that would drive me into a depression if I envisioned it for too long. A reality I avoided but was too true for too many who had grown up in my circumstances.

The sweet chitter chatter from the magpies and sparrows outside let me know that it was still early morning and I knew that from the illusiveness of my sleepy meditation, that I would soon be conked out drooling on my mismatched bed linen. It had to still be 7 something in the morning but I was too drowsy to check. I yawned and rolled over onto my front while the song by Ramz 'Barking' played in my mind like a lullaby as I began to dream about my video vixen life in front of the camera.