Hold my hand dear Benjamin
don't let Professor Edwards
catch me in a dreamscape
challenging me off guard
as we sit in math class
hands clasped together
for when you knowingly
squeeze my hand tighter
scribbling with your right hand
the answer which is required
to be erased so as not caught out
but today as I look out
onto drifting clouded skies
I see the changes and I lose
myself in shapes and smoke
forging out homes, characters
stories into my past, present
and what could be in the future
nothing is taken from me, distracted
in an instant I'm Vivian Ward
racing around Hollywood
with my best friend Kit De Luca
who eats cold pizza for breakfast
and crawls the streets with me
hop scotching across the
Hollywood Walk of Fame,
five star terrazzo and brass stars, names of Hollywood greats
blonde, brunette elegance
Manolo's, mink coats,
jewelled necklines of emerald stones
we'd both dreamt as kids
Los Angeles; the City of Angels
we are the winged, we are the free
inhabiting the land of opportunity
the ladies of the night, grappling onto souls of kids, shared flat
with bunk beds and a closet filled
with 80's short tight spandex
leg warmers, faux gold earrings
bright coloured lingerie, leather bomber jackets, tutus...
oh and those perms and scrunchies
fake eye lashes, an 80's kid high as hell
being courted by an older wealthier man
living fast, dying young, a fugitive
of the land

broken

The silence I succumbed to
bruised by a cacophony of bells ringing

"never change Lou lou!"

he winked and smiled
packing his rucksack
leaving for the day.

© Sia Jane

“She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague “she” of all the poetry books.”
Gustave Flaubert, “Madame Bovary”