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Saturday 30 June 2012

Valediction


The garden of Childhood has locked its gates;
We no longer feel the sun on our skin or play hide-and-seek,
The path out of Eden is a tangled place;
Teen lust swelters in the atmosphere,
The sky breaks out in a sweat and blushes pink.
We play our mischievous games in the moonlight now;
It shiny, round face wobbles on the surface of the water. My mind swims.
Fountains of vodka seem to pour out the ground. I try to cleanse myself; a rebirth into the person I want to become.
Soon the landscape around me, the trees, all move in a sinister ebb and flow…
I close my eyes and count-to-ten.

Your gaze burns me,
If two cities were alight either side of us, I’d never know,
And desire often carries a torch in its tail,
You move your hand to touch mine.
For one night only, I thought you would be thrilling and experimental,
Tender. Now these feelings take me over
I don’t know who I am, what I am, always on the run. I long for simplicity,
These days everything is a moment and a rush of chemicals,
We can’t think about right and wrong, what people will say or whether it’s a phase,
If you stop in your tracks you’ll spot cracks in your face, white dust on your shoes,
Taste salt in your tears.

The teenage mind is a whirlwind,
We’re alone outside. Shhhh! Put your hands on my waist, kiss me, make me feel beautiful,
Colour rides on the night like foam on the sea,
Love is the world through a kaleidoscope, but sometimes we just see red,
Get angry! Read Marx. Join Greenpeace. The earth is colonised by monsters; the political, the mercenary, the violent, the wheedling. Liars and thieves strut in a nightmarish pageant…
The world is a dead weight which I carry on my shoulders,
My hair is matted with blood,
I pull out my crown of thorns and lay it aside,
Whose sins am I dying for?
Theirs? Mine?

This is already a world of wars,
There’s a hole in the sky and the earth blisters under it,
False prophets lurk on every street corner; their white teeth flashing light from billboards,
Consumption,
But for us the end is closer.
Dreams and passions are put to sleep
Now I groan at the calling of deadlines and obligations,
Bills, B&Q and baby-clothes;
The world outside is monochrome, whichever path you choose,
But you never know, perhaps I will rise up perfect? You won’t even recognise me
Until you touch the wounds.