For the first two months of college I didn’t speak
Convinced everyone here are hillbilly freaks
Then you asked to borrow my paint brush
Long brown hair in a bun and brows so lush
I gave it to you in a heartbeat
Because you were the first person I thought was neat

Im still not sure how I got so lucky to befriend you
I’ve never felt a connection this real and true
When we sit in the forest smoking **** and cigarettes
And you’re still wearing the same paint covered sweats
Singing to Rihannon by Fleetwood Mac
I felt myself gaining my soul back

I can’t decipher what’s hiding behind your dark brown eyes
But your passion for art is as tall as the skies
You inspired me to change my point of view
Maybe this place isnt so bad, who knew
Your kindness cracked my heart’s thick shell
And painted the lines with shades of pastel

No boy ever told me they cried when they moved away
Your open and truthful soul makes everything ok
The freckles sprayed on your cheeks are like artwork
That’s a companion piece to your crooked smirk
I cried thinking we would drift apart once school’s done
But you told me we’ll always be friends in the long run

So
Thank you
Thank you for being my friend
Thank you for being who you are

It took my love, It took me down
Called my inside to be found
And I saw my reflection in the mirror of your face
Till the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I write what's changing the ocean inside?
Can I hold the reasons for my life?

Mmm, mmm, mmm

Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes it bolder
Even music gets older and I'm getting older too

Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes it bolder
Even music gets older and I'm getting older too
Oh, I'm getting older too

Awh, take my love, take me down
Awh, you called my inside to be found
And if you see my reflection in the mirror of your face
Well, the landslide brang it down

And if you see my reflection in the mirror of your face
Well, the landslide brang it down
Oh, the landslide brang me down

I love being horribly straightforward. I love sending reckless text messages (because how reckless can a form of digitized communication be?) and telling people I love them and telling people they are absolutely magical humans and I cannot believe they really exist. I love saying, “Kiss me harder,” and “You’re a good person,” and, “You brighten my day.” I live my life as straight-forward as possible.

Because one day, I might get hit by a bus.

I could be walking down the street one day, blasting Rihanna or Fleetwood Mac, jamming so hard that I don’t see the bus coming. I could be walking with a book in my hand, reading until the very end. I could be paying total and complete attention, imagine the impact before it arrives.

And I’d really, really rather not die with some confusing statement I said sitting in the phone or the thoughts or the memory of someone I know, care about, need.

I know how it is—we all want to be mysterious. None of us want to get hurt. None of us want to look desperate. So we wait to respond to texts, phone calls, emails, Facebook messages, Tweets. So we communicate our emotions in how we end our messages (no period this time? Really gonna get them.). So we say vague, half-statements and expect people to read our minds.

But what if we died?

What if the last thing you ever texted that girl was, “I don’t know, whenever,” when she asked when she should come over, even though you really really wanted to see her right now? What if you were head-over-heels in lust with some beautiful human in your Lit. class but you chose to wait 15 seconds before texting them back, only to never get the chance to text them at all?

Maybe it’s weird. Maybe it’s scary. Maybe it seems downright impossible to just be—to just let people know you want them, need them, feel like, in this very moment, you will die if you do not see them, hold them, touch them in some way whether its your feet on their thighs on the couch or your tongue in their mouth or your heart in their hands.

But there is nothing more beautiful than being desperate.

And there is nothing more risky than pretending not to care.

We are young and we are human and we are beautiful and we are not as in control as we think we are. We never know who needs us back. We never know the magic that can arise between ourselves and other humans.

We never know when the bus is coming.

(So go text them back.)

-Rachel C. Lewis

By Arcassin Burnham
Original Lyrics By Fleetwood Mac


Situational views with over determination ,
I don't need a judge or a saint , thanks for consideration,
Poked eyes don't see the evils that go on in this country,
Some people could hear them calling from hell , it must be comfy,
Plant life can't even really get a stance without people building buildings
Over them , there ain't a chance,
But nothing to a country boy that just works with his hands,
But not in a country so doped by wickedness , do you understand?

Listen As My Heart Grows,
Watch us all rise.
Running towards the Meadows,**** deciet,
**** your lies

And if you don't love me now,
While your heart is dipped in sin,
I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain",
(Never break the chain)
You've broke my soul somehow,
We can't just sit here and pretend,
I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain",
(Never break the chain)

Listen As My Heart Grows,
Flowers all in sight.
Running In The Meadows,hide the dark,
Embrace the light,
Your Love is stricken,**** deciet,
**** your lies,

And if you don't love me now,
While your heart is dipped in sin,
I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain",
(Never break the chain)
You've broke my soul somehow,
We can't just sit here and pretend,
I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain",
(Never break the chain)
And if you don't love me now,
While your heart is dipped in sin,
I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain",
(Never break the chain*)

Never break the chain,
Never break it with your family,
Never break the chain,
Never break it with your friends to be,
Let the link be stronger like protecters,
Keep your enemies,
Closer, in world full of broken hearts and a lot disclosure,
Is a lot to be saying for a kid that lives Florida,
We need closure for these posers that make greed a rare exposure,
Ain't no,
Signed sealed deliver **** when it hits the fan,
And nowadays being a man that dies is mostly a black man,
My opinions just stirs up so much conflict in comforting someone about the
Truth and it's allegiance,
Killings happen , it repeats and,
Don't let them open up the season.

Chains keep us together,
(Run into the shadows)
Chains keep us together,
(Run into the shadows)
Chains keep us together,
(Run into the shadows)
Chains keep us together,
(Run into the shadows)
Chains keep us together,
(Run into the shadows).

On love and astral travelling,
Through the stars we're wandering,
On the universe we're pondering,
My eternal love, Napoleon,
Intangible man, but  full of fun,
Our jewelled cloak of stars,
We've journeyed from afar,
Shape shifting, glittering,
On love and astral travelling,
I'm no Carlos Santana,
I have no scarlet bandana,
I am the oestrogen,
Old Josephine,
Where haven't we been?
I have no testosterone,
You're my "Yes, master!" Napoleon---
On love and astral travelling,
Sentimentally wandering,
Are you Angelus or Incubus?
Reminiscing, reflecting,
Comical groupies for loving,
On love and astral travelling......

Fleetwood was good
but not as good as
Blackpool and her golden mile
Blackpool made us children smile
Fleetwood gave us fish but
Blackpool made us wish the
day would never end.

on the night i touched you everywhere
i cried on the drive back home
thanking god that i'm not broken after all

you listen to fleetwood's "everywhere"
when you think of falling in love
i listen to it too and imagine you

there are pieces of you everywhere
in my bed, my shower, my soul
reminders of our love forever there

when you left me, i hurt everywhere
an ache i had never known
there is before you but no after you

i still want to be with you,
everywhere.

can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
can I handle the seasons of my life?

alt. original fleetwood mac - breakout - kiedy byłem małym chłopcem (when i was a small boy).*

**** me!
  if this is the sort of music that was
played behind the iron curtain?
please! please!
   oh god please take me back!
one and only one example is
sufficient:    
   breakout's      
     kiedy byłem małym chłopcem...
  (when i was a small boy)...
  it's like
    listening to fleetwood mac...
oh wait...
   peter green's fleet...
         before the female vocals...
ha ha... "cultural appropriation"...
white boy's blues...
         could be a genre, could be...
was.
   http://tinyurl.com/ycql35uu.
           yeah, communism was all bad...
solidarity activists
   infiltrated an iron maiden concert
with badges in warsaw or katowice
                    (sputnik),
sent ol' **** wałęnsa to florida
in hawaiian shorts... plus plus...
    oj, leszek... niezły floral pa-pa-tern!
the story of breakout parallels
that of fleetwood mac... great blues
bands... guitars of the former band:
pan nalepa...
              oh yeah, no culture
under the iron curtain, universal shared
misery that hoped to attain a plataeu
of shared misery...
    very bad, bad bad bad, all bad!
   ah, i won't even mind talking about
the coal-miners' saint that was gierek...
        and some said: hallucinating
maggie had all the wild cards ready for
    a reagan insurrection... howdie pawtner...
  (sure, quick i.e. in howdie,
alt. howdy)...
   giddie up!
         we're heading for the rodeo!
and a texan bush-wackers' tight-nip,
       getting spanked with a cactus! ye-ha!
alt.?   no hyphen, two acutes:
       yé há!      branches... gotta break 'em.

I. Connection - becoming phantoms in a fever dream holding hands and jumping into the abyss laughing, the swirling chaos of existence reduced to the space between parted lips, a look exchanged, a dance from the edge of reason to the holy arms of the sunrise, a night in which you learn to forget and embrace
II. The telling of fortunes - between lines of palms and decks of cards, between the eyes of gypsies that have tasted the dream of freedom, between sleepy kisses and the implications of a future in which Things Are Looking Up,
III. Sobering up - learning which parts of yourself you hide because you are ashamed and which parts you hide because you are afraid
IV. Letting it the hell out - learning to sing and dance and kiss and **** and drive fast and start fights and swear and howl and scream and write and perform and bare your skin and your teeth and your heart and your naked soul
V. Nostalgia - the reflection that the roads you walked and the clothes you wore and the girls you loved and the friends you kept and the things you thought were beautiful will never take you anywhere but home, but ******* does it feel good to come home sometimes
VI. Reconciliation - the understanding that everyone holds true, that in a time travel scenario everybody has a past self who would kick the **** out of their present self, and more than likely a future self who would be revolted by both, and that this is the progression of time as we perceive it at work
VII. Acceptance - the act of bringing together the pieces, the act of becoming unbroken, the act of having faith that you will become broken again at some point, the act of having faith in the cycle, the act of rising, the act of relapsing, the act of creation, the act of destruction, the act of living in a way that will someday make for great television, the act of fighting even though you know you will lose, the act of making it all count for something

If I live to see the seven wonders again, I will be more grateful

.ich bin der feuer, das bloß isst, und isst, und isst... und... isst; ein feuer das für immer verbrauchen!

i counted...
you know how many times, it takes a male
sparrow to approach a female sparrow,
            to impregnate her?
                                                 11... ELEVEN -        eh-lé-ven...
                            é-le(h)-ven...
­             times...
                                          it's almost like
******* for the darwinists...
                                   at least the marxists say:
                                 woman ≠ mantis ≠ black widow spider...
the biology of marxism is stated, plainly:
we exclude all other biological products
of this earth... we accept a case for bio-diversity...
    but what will transgender ever do for us?
as asked, simply an e.g.
                       marxism doesn't draw conclusion
from the animal realm...
     it's not supposed to...
                          you want to compare yourself
to a mantis?    **** me! go right ahead...
       "eat" the man in the legal courts...
                   bite his head off... or at least make
his head focus on the vector alimony.
                 marxism is species exlusive...
            social darwinism? it's species inclusive...
hence the comparisons...
                                 women as black widows...
       it's ******* sick... at least compare yourself
to a ******* serpent...
               which, i'm trying to find the ****,
and eyelids on...
                                    huh?
                  ­ last time i heard snakes don't blink...
and that's auto-suggestive of the question:
   how do they take a ****?
                      i can't call the cards stating a
"cultural" marxism... since what is cultural,
                                      is actually darwinism.
by now, marxism says: stop the ******* comparison
of the highest form of mammal (human)
                with the lowest form of reptile (insect)!
*******!               and if that's not what's going on,
then i'm either dead, writing from beyond the grave,
of plain stupid...     the self-raising flour type
                                                 of argumentative(s);
the moment they stop denying that cultural darwinism
doesn't exist?       that's when you have an excuse.
me? i have my whiskey, and my cigarettes,
    and some fleetwood mac...
                                     and i live on the borderline
between an urban environment, and the countryside...
       what's one of my favourite hobbies while drinking?
sorting oout the trash... i have this fetish for
     recycling... i get all itchy fingers, like an octopus
when it comes to sorting out the trash...
          like a german with his wind-farm's worth turbines...
i love recycling... those orange bags...
                   you know that marxism was born from
             the meagre material of hegel's lecture notes, right?
and that mongolia was the first communist country?
     yeah, they experimented the ideology in mongolia, first.
anyway... getting drunk, and taking out the trash...
        recycling...    for some reason, i can only compare it
to riding a bicycle in the english countryside...
    or the sound of a french horn... compared to a cow farting.
a maine **** farting:
**** me, that's like seeing the taj mahal!

p.s.
i find it uncomfortable to find millenials
faking praises of the gen-Z...
ping-pong in the modern labyrinths
of shopping, really?
you said your bit, let me say mine...
   people are not made to become
precursors?! really?!
   problem...
as a male... an older woman drunk
looks pathetic:
an old man drunk: eh... that's just normal...
an 50+ aged bachelor:
no problem...
a 50+ "maiden": that's terrible...
a solitary man ageing doesn't
look half as bad as an ageing woman...

   who looks better:
roger moore "vs." helen mirren?
too many predictions /
past the common spreschen:
predicts in association to
a respectable lingua...

what are, "my" precursors for the worth
of completing myself...
i hear the warrior-"philosophers"
spew...
    in light of infanticide...
man up man up to, what?
   what are my ambitions in
and to thorough life?
              none resemble the affects
associate with serving the ambitions
of a genus, of a species,
of a cultural darwinism narrative,
as if to, magically,
counter the cultural marxist narrative...
i am to counter?
really?! what's there's to counter?
all the idiot will be half-way through
breeding while i'm planning
my exit strategy...
the human species will be fine
and dandy... whether white or copper
skinned is beside the point...
i just don't tend to appreciate
abortion frivoloties and whatever remains
of masculine ambitions...
well i already know what "masculine ambition"
involves with the opposite ***...
within the confines of oneself...
hello prison esque "return the favor"...
shoved my head up my own ***
for too long i guess...
or a not deep enough pocket of "spare" change...
to fund:
               how many moments of insight will
you find listening to a high-heel
on a vinyl rack when a vinyl is missing?!
as many as i would ever have...
   nooooooooooooooooooon!

    what have i not obliged myself to become
to counter social expectations?
i am a social nuisance...
    a culmination of the reigning pathos...
but a sorry state of affairs
is truly a woman in her 30s and her 40s
with... more an abortion in hand
than a birth of a child and a second child
to come...
  a drunk woman always appears more
forlorn than a drunk man....
as a man: i am persistent in providing
myself with the ambition
of giving birth ti myself,
even after i am born...
   i am still to be born,
in that i am to give birth to myself:
a feat, which will finally materialise upon
my death...
but a woman?
     if she hasn't ventured into her
biological realism of spawning birth...
that outcompetes her own
intellectual endeavour and surpasses it?
i don't have that existential luxury
of an existential fulfillment process of
the "easy answer"...
the best i can accomplish to compensate
a replica in terms of being pregnant
is harvest an array of parasites...
tapeworm or cancer...
certainly not a matthew,
or a samatha, or a malachi,
        or an amelia.

                   the closest i'll ever come
to an experience of a foetus is my own ego...
to learn to disembody myself in the variations
of:
   (a) the reflexive: myself, and
(b) the reflective: my self...
                  women have the easy existential
explanation: to provide the continuum narrative...
"we", men? the sort of ******* that comes
in between, the custard explanations,
the excuses worth the ingenuity of "problems
solved".

   question is: where these the "problems"
to begin with?
    this desolate man still concerns himself
with tennis:
two players...
an array of umpires... the size of a football team
(11)... and the ball collector boys / girls
(6)...
       an old bachelor... is half the problem
of the half of society's ills...
                   but an old maid / spinster?
        
a drunk man can retain his stage of funny...
but a drunk woman of the same age
is just tragic.

i remember the first time bryn brought a boy for christmas
his name was chris
and we had to distinguish between him and my cousin chris
so we called him gay chris
because he had lots of pockets
and he always looked better than my cousins
who hardly ever tried to look presentable.
i remember last christmas
how damon gave elise
sweaters from a thrift shop and fleetwood mac records
and how happy she was.
i never wanted to be allie from the notebook,
and i never wanted you to be noah.
in the 8th grade,
hidden between shelves of a torn-down library where i'd sit for hours,
was a short, thick book with pages of romanticized post-it notes
and the smell of sawdust.
dash and lily's book of dares
was all the things i'd been dreaming about.
the first-glance feelings in the middle of new york,
the warm feeling melting through your bones with an even warmer drink.
i've always wanted a chris
or a shaina
or a natasha.
i've always imagined thanksgiving day going differently for once in my life.
when my uncle asks me if i'm texting my boyfriend,
i want to say "yes, actually" and i wanted to find a boy
to take to my grandmother's house.
i wanted to show him
how tristan would pay me to go sneak him cookies,
and the way we fought over couches.
but now we took all the couches out of the basement,
and i think someone else is living in that house.
but there's still thanksgiving,
there's still an extra seat at the table,
and i'm not sure but i think justin is bringing maya this year.
so when it is my turn to go around the house and say hello to everyone,
and my uncle asks, "how many boyfriends do you have?" teasingly,
i can smile and say "just one"
and it can be you.

I am from a Saturday afternoon living room overflowing with the sounds of Fleetwood Mac, John Lennon and Bob Dylan.
I am from home cooked meals, roaring laughter at the dinner table and short tempered Italians.
I am from Frank Sinatra singalongs, Lifetime movies and swimming lessons from my Mimi.
I am from my Pop’s war stories, tomato picking and ***** jokes.
I am from the grandparents that didn’t want my dad and the grandparents that did.
I am from the stoic grandmother that wasn’t involved in my mom’s life and the deadbeat grandad that didn’t seem to exist.
I am from the ten years of Catholic school, plaid skirts and polo shirts.
I am from spoon-fed customs of Catholicism every day except (coincidentally) Sunday mornings.
I am from rose scented mornings because of regretted whiskey words from the night before.
I am from words muttered impulsively, apologizes not offered graciously and too many family nights turned into family fights.
I am from cigarette infused hugs, plastered smiles and “I’ll quit tomorrow”.
I am from twenty-six years of handholding, couch cuddling and kitchen dancing.
I am from goodnight kisses, chocolate chip cookies in my lunch and red heart emoji’s in a text.
I am from love and anger and happiness and remorse.
I am from memories in the making and a future unknown.

nightsong/fallsong
nippy nightfog, dark drive (solo)
breathy windshield, elmvale driveway defog,
a naked girl/thru the house panes
whose bareness
is shown teasingly. (full aware)

homestead.
lamplight, "goodnight!", golden readlight.
bowl of noodles -- broccoli,
darkly pacing silent upstairs/eight-track recorder loudsound (genesis/trick of the tail)
weedpipe outside cold fresh nighttime.
outdoor *******/rockwall/hosetap,
posters/scotchtape/pins
(troilus & cressida pages taped to th'wall)
alone with thinkcap, lady dreamin'
(that ***!---ahh!) (sighs)
ragged joint thru windowscreen . . . baked-up mouth pasted---ice tea sippin' (glorious)
warm blankets & an empty bed;
need to get out of this ****** old town
empty; lonesome songs.
---but, think better . . .
this pre-spain hometown transatlantic waitin' sadness won't last
forever.
& tripping gets you nowhere. (snoop dogg)
smoke again and maybe put on
more genesis.
. . .
*(tho it is fleetwood mac instead
that i slap on/toss myself into bed.)

Life is not always what you planned.
We were in the back yard of the abandoned house next door to his watching his two mutts chase each other around the perimeter. House after tiny peeling white painted house line the street “Summerbelle” with roofs covered in crinkled brown leaves. He runs his hand through his too long ***** brown hair. Tall and blue eyed, he could have been handsome maybe.
I had stopped by to pick up my glasses from on top of his coffee table. I don’t remember how they had gotten there exactly but at some point last night roasting-marshmallows-and-a-bonfire had turned into mango-juice-*****- forgetting-your-glasses-party with all the neighbors.
We were talking about fall, how the colors and the smells are beautiful, but foreboding, warning that winter and depression are coming. It’s a problem we have. On my walk over I had stopped to pick up a particularly beautiful leaf to give to him. It was just the sort of thing he would understand.
I reminded him we have to dress up for class on the 6th, and asked if he even had a suit. He then launched into a ten minute story about how he used to work on a senator’s campaign, 18 hour days and everything.
Not something I would have expected.
We gradually shuffle into the house, and I pick up my glasses from right where I had left them. The door is never locked in his house, but no one usually steals anything.  The walls are covered in crayoned drawings and quotes, over the top of it all “Fleetwood” graffitied in orange and red. I remember that is what we had decided to name the house last night. I had been sitting on the couch with a beer admiring the artist, bringing him a new Blue Ribbon can periodically for a kiss.
“Are you and A together now?”
I shake off the hazy memories. “Hm?”
“You and A.”
“Oh. We’re…yeah.” His signature grin never faded but his eyes had dipped to the floor. “How could you tell?”
“The way you spoke to him.” It was all the explanation he offered. “He’s a good guy.”
“He is.”
My mind wandered back to the morning, waking up next to the artist brushing my hair off my face, kissing my forehead. Surreal.
There wasn’t much left to say, so it was time for me to go. Turning to the door I saw what I had written on the wall last night, hidden under the windowsill, part way behind the couch. Under the song lyrics, clichéd quotes like “Be good or be good at it” and messages of peace, love and adventure it was nestled.
*All the same, we are nothing.

i'd like to get drunk
off of sweet nectarine
and make love to the sound of pattering
rooftop rain
reciting declarations written on
cafe napkins, bits of dreams birthed
from hazy afternoons
sunlight the kind that sends you into
a tantalizing dance, fleetwood mac humming
from the phono graph
a scratch along the window screen
from the neighborhood tabby
naked beneath your sweater
collecting lint
to be plucked,
absentmindedly away
as kisses collect
scorching the hands
that dared to pull
the crust of the earth

I feel it creeping
the urge to bleed
to drink scotch
to wear tight leather pants
and tee shirts or ripped tops
or some dress that leaves little to the imagination
with a corset and a garter underneath
matched with towering heels or thigh high boots
I want to skip town
to kiss new men and ladies
to rouge my lips and cheeks
to cut my hair short
or grow it so long
to cut my arms deep
and buy a motorcycle
and date a guy who smokes
who swirls gin
who always takes charge
has no problem making decisions
and outwardly looks down on me
who calls me young and naive
and loves me that way
and says i'm sexier for my innocence and youth
and is much older
and flaunts that he could leave
who pulls my hair hard
and picks me up with ease
and kisses my neck
with smoke rich on his tongue
and likes me better in flats so he can feel even taller and stronger
and who keeps an arm around me when we go out
so that everyone knows i'm his girl
and loves to kiss me on the subway and relishes in the looks we get
and looks at other women
But he loves me
and knows what i'm worth
even if he wont say it
he needs to miss me when I leave him
when I skip town again
he will miss my voice
my kisses
the sweet words I use
my laugh
my body
the way I move
what I do when the lights are out
and how he let out some ****** deviant from within me
And the simplicity of my love you's
how nothing in our relationship was a show
I want to break outwardly
to make these mistakes
to stop clinging so much
to the past
to ideals of true love
to my virginity
and everything i'm told to want
I want to wear black instead of pastels
and bleach my hair white
and make the boys want me
for once, let them want me
I feel the urge creeping  
but instead I will stay home
slippers on my feet
Earl Grey in my hands
record scratching out some Fleetwood
with my sweet flowery clothing clinging to nothing
I'll do my yoga
clean my room
and finish all my homework
I'll call my boyfriend who loves me dearly
who I think I love, though others tell me that is not so
because I want for a different life
though I deny that he needs to become my life
I'll write some poem about human nature
and tell my perfect boyfriend not to smoke
I won't tell him how hot smoking is
I will spend time with my parents
do some more yoga
take my anti depressants
do the exercises my therapist told me to do  
and wish I could change my life

Bright Eyes: Lua
Loudon Wainwright: Motel Blues
Radiohead: No Surprises
Keaton Henson: You don't know how luck you are
Tigers Jaw: Never saw it coming
Fleetwood Mac: Songbird
Paolo Nutini: Candy
... and your laugh
the clearing of your throat
your sharp intakes of breath
the chattering of your teeth in the cold
and the movement of cloth against your skin

And it's still hard to believe it's been a year
even after a year has turned into a year and one month

And the burn that follows a tequila shot
is accompanied by your laugh

And coconut anything smells like you

And anytime any one of the many songs you loved plays
You are all I see

And I think about your eyelashes
when I put my makeup on

And red lipstick and polka dots
cannot be worn without remembering you on any other day

And lemon squares taste
like those good times

LOTR? The Beatles? Pink Floyd? Fleetwood Mac? Shakespeare? Hilary Duff?(only you would understand)
All enjoyed with you in mind

And everything that's awesome
has become a reminder
that you missed being our tequila queen on the first day;
that you never got to wear your cap and gown
and eat pancakes at 5 am;
never got to see eighteen
and put your well educated vote to use;
and you never got to stand to your full five feet and one inch
and say to the world
"Here I come."

And I guess the songbirds keep singing
with that blackbird
in the dead of night

But it's hard to hear
because we're all butchering Bennie and the Jets
at the top of our lungs
from atop someone's couch

Just like you'd have wanted,
just like you'd have done.

shoulders squared
putter lined up against
the pink gum ball at my
miniature feet
i know my father is watching
and i know he will swing me around in his arms
regardless if i get a hole in one,
and say, 'i'm proud of you, kathy b'
that loop-de-loop was a real *****

i remember the car rides home
fleetwood mac on the freeway
every time i asked you where we were going
you'd tell me, "to the moon"
hold my hand,
and with you
we went celestial

and in a couple years,
i'll advance and swing clubs against the wind
i begged you to teach me, begging
"how do you get that ball to fly so high"
i'd crane my neck against the sky
even with me on your shoulders,
our love flew so high
and i was terrified of you dropping me

i never played to impress you
i played because it was a part of you
sweetly polished, leather golf shoes
you smelled like grass,
and sunday
and thick tulsa wind
so you and i played every weekend

in aunt melissa's backyard,
i stared at my compromise
when i was thrown off the backseat of the cart
my twisted tiny fingers
dangling
pit pattering against rubber
it smelled like gasoline
and i couldn't stop thinking about
your sweet leather, newly polished shoes

we didn't play golf anymore after that
i stared death in the face, and so do you
because we hold hands in a different ways
you're on my shoulders now
because your occipital is faulty
and you can barely see

i'm hoping one day,
you'll teach me how to hurl pink gum *****
through the wind, so effortlessly
i hope one day you'll teach me
to pick out the perfect christmas tree,
and i hope you tells me you're proud of me,
kathy b
a perfect chicken soup recipe
the cure for all broken memories

some of the poems i read i'm afraid of, someone crude would call them mediocre, but i don't have a heart for such words, i'm afraid of them for a simple reason: they're so fragile - it's like handling porcelain with these miner's doughnut hands and thick hotdog fingers, you really don't know what to do with such poems, it's the body undressed, covered in goosebumps and very little else.

sure, you can experience love, the love that's
you and her back in Eden,
maddened, raw, you can experience that,
but such love exists between a boy who
has two years past the teens, and a girl
in her teens, the boy had to invest almost
the same amounts of slush puppy **** as she,
music wise, literature wise, ideals upon ideals,
love is idealised, *** is perfected,
you'll end up gravitating to other people's
expression whether true or fictional,
akin to *kisses sweeter than wine,
stop draggin' my heart around,
fade to black, it's all there, bloodhound
soppy eyes - a variation of some sort of psychic
awakening in alter-psychosis - the variation of
a juggernaut moving about, it's love pristine,
not the love we call petting and paying the bills,
it's a butterfly's wing caressing your ear
while it flutters - it doesn't last once truths
enter and realities condense to custard -
the paint dries on the wall, the Antarctic tundra
freezes and polar bears start hunting (well, you
could call them loan sharks if you wanted) -
when Adam's tonic turns into Sioux's anodyne -
Apache Sioux knew the deal, while others
use the anodyne for parties and uninhibited social
interactions, others sedate - a good enough
reason to forget that ol' wives tale of: better have
love and lost than not have loved at all -
yes, it's there, a bit like first impressions of
a poem for dada day at the place, april 1, 1958,
poems tell a different story, novels tell a different story,
movies tell a different story, asylum Hollywood
captures the imagination, but not necessarily the memory,
music tells a different story - and all converge and
diverge within geometry of circa - so love, mm,
barefooted going to the mosque for curry at the height,
scuttling like a **** head down Nicholson St. (Edinburgh),
past the music shop where once it was all smiles
and approving gestures while buying an album,
what was it? reggae k.k.k., ah right, steel pulse!
handsworth revolution - the same shop months later,
the same attendant of the pulse of music - the words
'if you want to find love, go to Germany', me guess that's
'cos of the accent, he Scot and me chameleon -
Heraclitus knew this flux, changes and changes -
all that and the creeping to the zenith before tumbling
into Milton's opening of satanic inquiry via
fleetwood mac's the chain - bass guitar the real star,
mirage of former glories of solo guitars - bass guitar
the conductor of rhythm - and in so writing, a fly
attracted to my "idle" hands - as they say, the devil
makes work of idle hands - the bass sets the rhythm,
the drums hush for a moment so the bass can be
protruding - great admiration for bands that allow
the bass a ray of sunshine - tool, schism; so yeah,
you can experience this fable of ancient greek
hierarchy - lovers poets prophets - but you have to
invest prior, and by way of chance you might -
slush puppy pop and ideals and ideals and ideals -
i could have went to Bristol, Warwick, Cardiff or Brighton,
instead, thanks to Mr. Thomas Boon'tss (wet snare tss,
sweat from a drummer, instigator of poet in me,
the observer, the shut-up guy, played a jailor in an adaptation
of the Merchant of Venice - skylock shy, frozen in
the reminder on v.h.s.) off to Haggis-land we went,
and found love there, and found inspiration,
and found an iron maiden for our head there too,
and found madness with a keen eye for tomorrow.

preface: this isn't cohesive, and it's mostly a side effect of having too much free time while stuck in traffic - lots of thoughts can pop into your half-awake head when you choose to start your 1 hour, 45 minute commute at 5:30 every morning and 6:30 every night.

these are some of those thoughts:

how many car accidents and concussions will it take for me to just move closer to where i work? apparently, more than five.

driving on a california freeway, especially in the rain, is like getting a free ride on the world's most dangerous slip n slide. or like playing roulette and praying you and your precious car you have had since high school don't fall victim to the misfortune of a collision or sink hole or only clear radio station being the one that won't stop playing adele songs that compel you to hit up your ex boyfriend again.

but you're a smart driver who doesn't text on the road or date men from new jersey anymore.

i like to map out new ways to tell my family that i'm actually kind of really gay because they've been having a really hard time accepting that, despite the fact that i've tried to make it as blatantly obvious as i could by dressing like chandler bing from friends, dying my hair rainbow, and listening to more fleetwood mac than any straight girl should.

i have even walked up to my mother and outright asked her, "hey, what's it like having a gay daughter?" (not that it should be any different than having any other kind of daughter), and she said, "i don't have a gay daughter", and i'm like, "oh my god, mom. yes, you do. she's 5'8", looks just like me, and is constantly talking about how gay she is."

a lot of people have given me unwarranted "advice" on how to make myself more appealing for jobs or romance, and i'll mull it over in the car, but not for too long because women aren't empty suggestion boxes just waiting for your input.

if anything, i'm more like the receptionist at the DMV. i'm only listening to you a third of the time, and the other 2/3, i wish you weren't there to bore me with your problems because it's not my fault that you need to pay off a ticket you got for texting your ex boyfriend from jersey.

people in college frequently asked me "what are you?" and i never really knew how to respond because i wasn't clear or pleased about the question's context or purpose. i would half-seriously respond with "i'm a sophomore" or "i'm a capricorn" or "i'm a sociology major who just realized gender isn't binary and taco tuesdays are a real and exciting thing".

i knew that being ethnically ambiguous meant i would be subjected to guessing games, but i thought if people didn't know what you were, you could dodge judgment and racism. but no, i actually just found myself treated like an ice cream flavour people had never heard of or tried before and weren't sure how they felt about it.

and i, myself, had been in this phase of dating exclusively white men for years, and it only recently occurred to me that that was probably because subconsciously i knew: "this is the closest i'll ever be to having white privilege".

then, i started working in schools where almost all the students were black and brown, and for the first time in my life, i saw myself in people around me.

small people, people in progress, with big brown eyes and clenched fists that i would spend months prying open

with love.

enough love to raise a hand,
hold a pencil,
braid my hair on days when it was so frizzy
- "oh my god, miss sangha, let me do it"

up until then, i had never chosen to be brown or queer or a woman. not until my students demanded i learn spanish because i already got the skin tone, now i just need to learn the language. not until my students asked me why the school made them line up boy girl, and one of them started the third line with pride that took me nearly a decade to find myself. not until i stopped letting people label me an angry ***** just because they lacked the vocabulary to say "wow, jaswin, you have really assertive leadership skills and i'm going to respect you and the space you take up and not at all be threatened or bothered by the fact that you have two X chromosomes to the point of harassing you to make my insecure self feel better."

i became someone who got "do it for the kids" tattooed on the left side vein that leads to her heart, someone who chooses her students every day to the extent of being terrified of having her own kid one day because if she can love someone else's child that much, her heart might just burst from locking eyes with someone whose existence she is actually directly responsible for.

clearly, i'm not going to let a little traffic slow down that kind of radical love.

< So how far back can you go then ?
How far down the Rope of Songs can you go ?
You were a Rocker weren't you, you liked Rock n' Roll
In the 80's you had a Walkman, you'd be listening to tapes and songs on the radio
You also wanted to be a drummer once, you loved the power and energy there
But what about the early days though, I'm interested particularly in the early days
How far back can you go I wonder
Yea! How far back and what memories do they bring up ? >

Back in the 70's watching Top of the Pops every Thursday evening on the BBC, essential viewing
With its exciting Whole Lotta Love intro
It was something exciting, thrilling
Waiting to see your favourite Band
And to see the Charts, how they were doing
In the Seventies there was Glam Rock, my eldest brother and me we were always arguing and fighting with one another, sibling rivalry I suppose
If he supported United then I'd have to support City...silly stuff
He liked the band Slade whereas I liked...I supported Marc Bolan and T-Rex
Solid Gold East Action I really liked that song
It was very fast, he rarely did fast songs Marc
Telegram Sam..."you're my main man"
Metal Guru..."is it true"
Twentieth Century Boy..."I wanna be your toy"
The hair on your neck would stand up when he'd come on...
Slade were good though, secretly I liked Slade too, they had great songs
*** on feel the Noise/ Girls grab the boys..
Coz I luv you...Mama we'er all crazy now...
Skweeze me Pleeze me "You know how to squeeze me..."
But there were lots of other good bands and so many great songs
We used to play cards for small money...pennies, a series of different card games, and we'd put on records while we played
We even learned to play Chess and we started a Chess League between us,
We'd always listen to the music as we played.

The Sweet's "Blockbuster" with its intro of police sirens, it spent about 5 weeks at No.1 in the UK Charts...
It reminds me of...of Fish that song...Fish on Fridays, we used to have fish every Friday, I didn't like fish there was bones in it
I wouldn't eat it then Mam would get angry
One time she took a mouthful of my fish trying to prove there were no bones in it
Then suddenly she started to cough and splutter and choke
A Bone had actually got caught in her throat
I thought it was my fault, I thought I'd killed her
She had to go to hospital to get it out
I was going to tell her "I told you the fish was dangerous"
That memory just came back to me when I thought of that song and that time

Yea! I liked Marc Bolan and T-Rex, songs like Metal Guru, Twentieth Century Boy
I remember I didn't like the lyric "Twentieth Century Boy/ I wanna be your toy"
It sounded silly to me that lyric, I suppose I wanted things to make sense
And when he did that song "New York City" with the lyric
"Did you ever see a woman coming out of New York City with a frog in her hand"
I thought then he was maybe losing it a bit
< You...you were a very serious child then weren't you ? >
I suppose I was...like a lot of children are...maybe I just wanted things to make sense.

< I'm interested in the early days, even the very early days and the memories you have
How far back can you go ? What about the funny novelty songs ? >
Chuck Berry had a No. 1 with "My Ding a Ling" playing with his Ding a Ling, we all thought it was very funny
Stayed at No. 1 for several weeks
"Gimme that thing, gimme gimme that thing (or Ding)" was another funny song
"Mouldy Old Dough" by Lieutenant Pigeon a keyboard song with the constant refrain of just "Mouldy Old Dough"
Cat Stevens had a song "I can't keep it in/ I gotta let it out/ gotta show the world..."
Novelty songs were important, they'd interest even your parents
They'd pass a comment "Ha! Ha! That's a funny song"
< And there were sad songs too, weren't there, really sad songs ? >
"Billy don't be a hero don't be a fool with your life" by Paper Lace about a young bride trying to talk her young fiancee out of going off to war, he doesn't listen and never comes back, he gets killed
The Government sends her a letter, she throws it away...
"Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks, 'Goodbye Michelle my little one/
We've known each other since we were nine or ten/ We climbed hills and trees skinned our knees...ABC's / O! Michelle it's hard to die when all the birds are singing in the sky..."
You'd nearly be in tears listening to it.
We used to buy Top of the Pops compilation records with lots of hits on them
Sometimes Mom would like a song, 'Stay with me' by the band Blue Mink
"Stay with me, lay with me/ Love me for longer..."
Always reminds me of my Mom that song
'Killing me softly with your song' Roberta Flack was another
'Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree..."
At school every Friday the teacher would have a spelling test, I used win it a lot, I was good at spelling
The teacher used to give some sweets as a prize, I used bring them home to my Mum.

The Eurovision Song contest (all the European countries would put forward a song), I remember being let stay up to watch Abba win in 1974 with 'Waterloo'
In their fabulous outfits...they looked like Stars, Giants to us, Norse legends from Sweden.  They were amazing!
And what about our own Dana, the young Irish girl from Derry who won the Eurovision for Ireland for the first time with 'All kinds of everything...remind me of you"
I was too young to be allowed to stay up to watch that one
But you could probably hear the adults shouting for Joy from the room below
Happy Nay amazed to see one of our own having done so well, being recognised, flying the flag for Ireland
And then there was seeing Thin Lizzy playing 'Whiskey in the Jar' on Top of the Pops, the first Irish Rock band ever to appear on the show
It was so exciting watching them on our old Black and white TV...an Irish Band one of your very own up there on the World stage
And what about Gilbert O'Sullivan from Waterford I think reaching No. 1 in the Charts with his lovely song 'Clair'
We thought it was a love song but at the end it was revealed it was in fact about a little girl he used babysit for...so sweet.
We used to get comics and magazines secondhand, bought at jumble sales (remember jumble sales)
There was a music magazine for young kids, mainly for girls I think
It was called 'Jackie', there'd be a few in our bundle
They'd have big pictures of all the current hearthrobs
Donny Osmond, David Cassidy, the Bay City Rollers
The young fans would go crazy for their idols
I remember Donny Osmond singing Puppy Love and his version of The Twelfth of Never...
"I'll love you till the bluebells forget to bloom
I'll love you till the clover has lost its perfume
I'll love you till the poets run out of rhyme
Until the Twelfth of Never/ And that's a long long time"...
They were beautiful words about loving, a forever love
And Baby I love you by The Ronettes "Baby I love you/ I love everything about you...
All singing about this wonderful mysterious thing called...called Love.

<Can you go back further than that?>
When we'd go up the village where the amusement arcade was
There'd be songs playing, there were dreamy songs
Albatross by Fleetwood Mac, A whiter shade of Pale by Procol Harum
There was an instrumental I remember called "Sylvia" by the Dutch band Focus
There was a lovely leggy blonde girl named Sylvia in my class at school
And yes! I think she was actually from Holland
(We had a few foreign girls in our class)
Y'know I think she fancied me...did Sylvia
She used to smile at me a lot.
I have a memory of being at the fairground in the Summer with its swing boats and bumper cars
It's roundabouts with the horses and swings, the shooting gallery, the stall for throwing rings over things and taking a prize home
I remember candy floss and ice cream cones
I remember playing the penny slot machines in the amusement arcade, all the different machines
I remember a song "California Man" by The Move... wonderful Summer days.

In the Sixties an Elvis or a Beatles film was a big deal
I remember A Hard Days Night in brilliant black and white
And then "Help" in wonderful colour
Trying to get a fabulous Ring off Ringo the drummer's finger... great songs
Watching The Banana Splits "One Banana Two Banana Three Banana Four/All Bananas going right through the door...
Remember The Monkees"Hey!Hey! We're The Monkees/You never know where we'll be found... We're the young generation and we got something to say"
Last Train to Clarksville, I'm a Believer... great songs too
Remember The Age of Aquarius "This is the age of Aquarius..."
The Sixties yeah!

<Did your Mom and Dad have a Singles collection, the old 45's. Do you remember?>
On our old Dansette record player Roy Orbison singing In Dreams and its B side Sharadoba a magical Egyptian sounding song
And also It's Over about a love affair breaking up
And its wonderful B side Indian Wedding, that was my favorite song among the 45's
It told the story of Yellow Hand and White Feather two Indians getting married
But then going off into the swirling snow never to return
Gone to the Land of the Rising Sun...
You'd listen to them over and over again those songs and that wonderful haunting voice.
<And what were you thinking about, what would be running through your mind when you'd be listening to those songs?>
I remember I wanted to be special that I'd have some special powers and be able to do great things
Something that would make me stand out and that people would be amazed
Maybe some of the girls too, would be very impressed.
My Dad he liked Jim Reeves, he had a lovely velvety smooth voice
He sang Billy Bayou 'Billy Billy Bayou watch where you go/ You're walking on quicksand/ Walk slow/ Billy Billy Bayou watch what you say/ A pretty girl is gonna get you one of these days...
He sang a lot of slow love songs "Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone and let believe that we're together all alone...
Anna Marie... Anna Marie
Four Walls to know me...

<Tell me about Christmas, the Christmas songs?>
Christmas was a magical time in our house, we'd have the Christmas tree with all the decorations and coloured lights on it
We'd have long concertina like decorations going from wall to wall, so colourful
And lots of glittery things
The songs... Slade singing 'Happy Christmas Everybody', Wizard singing 'I wish it could be Christmas everyday', Mud singing 'It'll be lonely this Christmas (without you to hold)' sounded like Elvis
Johnny Mathis singing 'When a child is born',
'Little Drummer Boy'...
In those days because of school and family you had a strong sense of belonging, having friends, attending birthdays and sports and community events and church
I remember the Christmas party in Primary school (Kindergarten), you had to bring your own treats
I'd only have some biscuits and diluted orange juice
Most people were relatively poor in those days
I was a bit embarrassed having so little
There was one boy and all he had was a bottle of milk to bring
Some used make fun of him, kids could be cruel sometimes.

I remember the teacher brought in a tape recorder once and taped every boy and girl's voice and then he'd play them back
I used dread when my voice would come up
'Cos suddenly the whole class would erupt in laughter
For some reason my voice sounded funny when taped
Even the teacher used smile
I felt so humiliated nay destroyed with them all laughing at me...
I remember... I remember singing the Christmas Carol 'Angels we have heard on high' with its chorus
"Glo..ooria, Gloria in Excelsis Deo"
It was Latin I think but I didn't know this
I thought we were singing "Gloria in a Chelsea stable"
I thought to myself "Jesus must be a supporter of Chelsea football/soccer club" heh!
We had Perry Como's Christmas album with the story of 'Frosty the Snowman' and 'The Christmas Song' ...
"chestnuts roasting on an open fire/ Jack Frost nipping at your nose/ Yuletide carols being sung by a choir/ And folks dressed up like Eskimos..."
And Bing Crosby of course, singing White Christmas
I think we all dreamed of a White Christmas
At school we'd sing 'Away in a Manger' and 'The First Nowell'
Y'know if I sing those songs even now to myself, I can... I can almost remember...

<What about the other songs you learned at school, funny songs, sad songs and the memories they bring up? >
There was a song 'Those were the days (my friend we thought they'd never end)' it was in the Charts
I think the teacher taught us it
The people in the song would be having a great time laughing and drinking and dancing in the taverns
But as they'd grow older their lives would change and they'd get lonelier and sadder...
'Puff the Magic Dragon' I remember there was a very sad bit in this song
Puff and his childhood friend would have so many great adventures together
But then one day, his friend he came no more (he'd found other toys to play with)
Poor Puff was left bereft, he slowly slunk back into his cave... this used to make me sad...
We did patriotic songs 'Roddy McCorley' (goes to die on the Bridge of Toom today)
We had a songbook at school, I still have it
It had lots of old folk songs
Oh! Susanna, Skip to my Lou, The Camptown Races
"Michael Finnegan beginagin/ He had hairs on his chinagin/ Poor old Michael Finnegan"
We used laugh at that song
"What are we going to do with the drunken sailor... early in the morning "
'Marching through Georgia' "Hurra! Hurra! We bring the Jubilee/ Hurra! Hurra! The flag that sets us free...a rousing song
The teacher would play a musical instrument, a melodica I think it was called
She'd blow into it and it had keys on top that'd she'd finger to create the notes
She divided the class into those who could sing and the others, the Crows she called us who couldn't
I was among the Crows
It made me feel bad being called a Crow.
In Primary school we used to play soccer during the breaks
It was usually the Boys from the Housing Estate versus the rest of us from the Village
There was never any tactics, the whole team en masse would just run after the ball LoL
I remember I used to get angry sometimes probably because of something someone had said to me
When I was angry I'd become like The Incredible Hulk
I'd go through the whole lot of them, beat them all
I was Unstoppable
I was the first boy in my class to ever score a goal using my head
The school would also have soccer leagues and we'd get put onto teams
But we were so small compared to the bigger older boys we'd hardly ever get a touch of the ball
But I... I managed to get a goal once which was unheard of from someone in our year
I was so happy.... delighted! My teacher even announced it to the whole class
That I'd scored... I was so chuffed
When I went home and told my parents though they didn't seem to think it was anything special....
My Dad he liked accordion music, he liked The Alexander Brothers from Scotland
They had a song 'Nobody's Child'
"I'm Nobody's Child, no one to love me/ No mother's kisses no mother's smiles/ I'm like a flower just growing wild..."

I used to sleep alone in my room
You'd be afraid there in the Dark on your own
There'd be a nightlight on the wall all lit up
A religious picture, the ****** Mary holding the child Jesus
I'd get Mom to leave the door open so I could faintly hear the voices downstairs
Sometimes I couldn't hear anything and I'd be afraid everybody had gone and left me
So I'd get up and sit on the landing listening
There was a few times when I'd actually go down the stairs
I'd be so relieved to see them all still there
I used sing songs in the dark to keep the fear away, songs we learned at school
"We're going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo/ How about You You You/ You can come too too too..."
Old MacDonald had a farm E-I-E-I O! and on that farm he had some...
"10 green bottles standing on a wall/ And if one green bottle should accidentally fall/ There'd be nine green bottles standing on the wall...
Sometimes I used recite poems we'd learned
"Two little blackbirds singing in the sun/ One flew away and then there was one... One little brick wall lonely in the sun/ Waiting for the blackbirds to come and sing again "
I also remember trying to recite to myself the multiplication tables...

<There were funny rhymes and nursery rhymes wasn't there? >
Christmas is coming/ The Goose is getting fat/ Please put a penny in the old Man's hat/ If you haven't got a penny a halfpenny will do/ If you haven't got a halfpenny God bless you...
Hickory Dickery dock/ The mouse ran up the clock...
They could be strangely violent sounding
Jack and Jill went up the hill/To fetch a pail of water/ Jack fell down and broke his crown/ And Jill came tumbling after...
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall/ Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...
Three blind mice/ See how they run/ They all run after the farmer's wife/ She cuts off their tails with a carving knife...
Girls are made of all things nice... sugar and spice/What are little boys made of/ Frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails...
Adam and Eve went up my sleeve and never came down till Christmas Eve...
I remember the early games we played, Snakes and Ladders, Ludo, Tiddlywinks trying to flick little plastic counters into a tiny plastic bucket, also playing draughts and marbles...

<Can you go back any further ? >
My Mom singing in the kitchen doing her daily chores singing some song off the radio
Dickie Rock an Irish showband singer singing
"Come back to stay/ And promise me you'll never stray/ I promise that I'll be true...
Sean Dunphy another Irish singer singing "If I could choose" (came second in the Eurovision Song contest)
Tom Jones 'The Green green grass of Home '
There was a lot of easy listening type songs on the radio Burt Bacharach type songs
Andy Williams, Englebert Huberdinck (Please release me let me go/ I don't love you anymore), Doris Day maybe
There's a lot I can't remember now
Val Doonican another Irish singer who'd made it big in the UK
(Had his own TV program for many years on the BBC)
He had a big hit with the song "Walk Tall"
"Walk tall and look the world right in the eye/That's what my mother told me when I was about knee high...
I remember one magical Christmas we got a present of a plastic projector
It came with several slides, they had wonderfully colourful cartoony pictures on them that told a story
We'd turn off all the lights and project it onto the wall
I remember it was like magic, the colours they were so vivid, they were like the colors off stained Glass windows...
The colour of things was very important when you were a kid, they'd almost create feelings inside of you
Colours came first... before words ever did
We often didn't understand the grown ups with their big words...
I remember getting collections of different kinds of toy soldiers and then staging battles
I remember collecting little toy Dinky cars they were called, that was their brand
And Matchbox cars (another brand) ... even today when I see certain colours of cars I am reminded of those old toy cars I used to play with... strange

<What are your earliest memories then? >
There was a question I always wanted to ask the adults but I never did, I thought it kind of funny and didn't want them to laugh at me
The question was "Why does Life always show me ?" An existentialist question even then.

We lived by the sea so you'd be lulled to sleep every night by the flowing up and flowing back of the sea... the tide... its gentle swaying back and forth motion
We had a black cloth picture/painting on the wall, a night scene with swans on a lake and an exotic house in the background with the Moon shining
It was so quiet and peaceful to look at...
My bedroom wallpaper had lovely red or pinkish roses
There was a colourful flower design sewn onto my pillowcase
It used to be lovely getting into bed with fresh linen...
I remember I used to get funny dreams even then, sometimes scary dreams
But I remember you were always safe 'cos in the dream you had a special ring you could put on and then the scary dream would go away (I've often wondered after was that maybe where Tolkien got his inspiration for The Lord of the Rings and Wagner the music composer for his music opera "The Ring")

<Can you go back...any further ? >
Going back further, you're almost falling off the edge of the world there
To a time... to a time when there were no words
When a child comes into the world they have no words
There's only... only The Silence... The Great Silence,
Silence is a strange thing, you can hear Silence
The fact that you can hear it means it must be changing from moment to moment
It too is just like a music, it's probably the first music
Without it there could be no other
The Music of the Spheres someone once called it
It just stays there in the background... glistening... your constant companion
Probably the first sound you ever heard, and probably the last you'll ever hear
It can grow very loud
It wasn't threatening, there were no monsters in it
Not until you went to school and learned words and heard scary stories
Did the monsters come
Words they can cast shadows... sometimes very long shadows...
There was a cot with wooden bars, I remember having a blanket with lovely warm colors on it, soft light blues and yellows, wooly sheep, Bo Peep or Bears or something
We had a golden coloured curtain with lots of designs on it in the bedroom
I remember if you looked hard enough you'd start to see faces in the curtain
Sometimes they would frighten me, they'd look very sharp and angry looking or maybe very sad unhappy looking...
I suppose today I still see faces, in my mind, in the great curtain of all my memories, all those I ever met and knew...

I remember looking at my Mom's face and not knowing what she was
Babies their a complete clean slate, have no words, they know nothing of this world
Gradually they warm to their Mom's affections and come to trust her and bond with her.
Because you had no words when very young there'd be huge gaps in your consciousness
When your consciousness would be completely clear and still
The silence and stillness would envelop you
... and there was something else... something else there... something deep in the silence
Out of it would come something very strange and quite wonderful
It'd come upon you suddenly...it was like your consciousness was changing, opening up
It was like you were descending into some great... some great complex
Your eyes would be closed but still you could see it and feel it... you were part of it
And it was so natural and so familiar...it was where you came from...it was Home
There was a first part that would lead into another part... and then another, all different
Yea, it had several stages and you'd pass through each stage from the outside going inward right to the very last stage... the very Source of Life itself
And you'd be completely at ease with yourself, you'd be completely at Home there
It'd come every night... that Special thing.,. that Special Place
Y'know sometimes when I see a little baby asleep in its pram, I know... I know where they are
Their away now, away in that Special Place
Far faraway from this world of care, so peaceful and so quiet there
Guarded by unknowingness and the Great Silence
With no fear or confusion there to bedevil it
Knowing only a relaxation so deep and a great Stillness within...

But me! I was the youngest in my house, I was always fighting with my brothers
And I was a terrible worrier just like my Mother
I'd be worried about school and the teachers, and trying to understand my (school) lessons
And there'd always be problems, arguments, confusions... humiliations and cruel harsh words spoken
At night I remember I used shake my head vigorously as if trying to rid my mind
Of words that had been spoken, words that hurt or stung...or confused me
I used bump my head gently against the wall
But no! I couldn't escape them... my peace it was broken now...it was gone
And that Special Place just like in the song Puff the Magic Dragon
It came no more...it was lost to me.

I suppose this is all I can remember, all I can recall
I guess this is where I must have come in
I suppose I must have reached the end... the End of my Rope here.

I can't sleep

No, not because of the demons that normally torment me.
Tonight is different.

I creep downstairs
Footsteps light, floorboards creaking slightly.
My father is playing Fleetwood Mac on the loudspeakers.

Over Stevie Nicks' smooth, crooning voice I tell him to turn it down, in barely a whisper;
"I'm tired, dad.
Let me sleep.
Play it tomorrow."

I walk into the kitchen and mother is there
Awake, still.
Working.
For the both of us.
Both of her useless children.

I take a glass of milk and sit beside her by the dining table,
Jewels strewn across a cloth,
And listen to her excitedly tell me about her designs
With my eyelids half mast

I finish my milk and walk away
A silent goodnight escapes my lips, barely open.
I leave her to her work.

I take a glance at my father; he's watching The View now.
I walk up the stairs again, silent as a mouse.

I can't sleep.

My hands were sweaty and my stomach practiced summersaults
I wished for my body to fall into a black hole of space and time;
until this was all just a memory. I longed to be flooded with relief
I don't remember how we said hello, or if she asked how I was
Her lips were ruby red.
She once told me Sunday's were for band t-shirts and your boyfriend's sweats
I used to provide the latter
Now I don't focus on who does
She spoke a lot, I smoked a lot
She hasn't grown up much between our years of separation
Did I expect her to? Do I really mind that she hasn't?
She's still the same, she'll always be mine
In a parallel universe I'm waking up next to her
Butterflies bursting from my stomach as she pulls a Fleetwood Mac t-shirt over her head.
As I said goodbye all I was thinking was 'who the **** listens to Jethro Tull anymore?'

A little empty that morning
she sat on the top step
of the verandah
sipping tea, sipping thought.
Three steps down to the pavement
squares of sandstone
lay in even handed rhythms;
flatly refusing to contour.

He’d moved away last week; big bloke, big smile
could clasp four pavers in one hand,
laid the lot inside ten days,
maybe a record, who could say.

Completed, the pavement was now empty of him,
no more scraping back, no more chipping out,
no more broad smiling hands
reaching for her cups of tea.

She missed this; as she missed the slightly flat renditions of
‘midnight oil’ and ‘fleetwood mac’, the **** of his straw hat
and the farewell call of... "see you sometime in the morning suze..."
(always at exactly 6.30 a.m.)

He was big on tea,
said he was glad
to meet someone who knew it
wasn’t merely the dis-colouration of milk.
She’d smile at that, he was right,
things like tea were best, given time to infuse.
She sipped her tea, sipped her thoughts
and the deeper taste that came with a little time.

I remember when I first met you
I admired you
the way you behaved was so exciting
I had to be a part of it
but I was terrified of doing something wrong
because I was so uncool plain boring

you were the smiths, the who, the beatles
I was whatever was on the radio
I had no appreciation for music or art

after a wild few weeks of an endless summer
we never spoke

then we met again
I was drunk on cheap wine
you were high

we began spending every day with each other
you walked me home

eventually feelings began to grow
you became my boyfriend
I became your girlfriend
but you were older than me
and I was young and confused

our relationship ended badly

after a year of silence
we started to talk again
we were different people
you are the smiths, bob marley, cypress hill
I am blink-182, fleetwood mac, pink floyd

a great deal happened in our year of silence
but I could sense that you had a strong admiration for the person I had become
and when our friend had been stabbed right in front of us
you saw that I was a strong, caring, intelligent young lady

weeks later you had confessed that you had feelings for me
I was already aware of these feelings
(I had taken advantage of them many times)
and you thought that the feeling was mutual

sadly I don't think that I'll ever feel the way I did about you
you changed.

I can only imagine how embarrassed and hurt you must feel
but I can't go through another period of silence
I think that you can

I love talking to you
but I don't love you

I love being with you
but I don't love you

*I don't love you

i.   on our first date, you ask if i want to learn how to fly. guiding my trembling fingers over the yoke, you introduce me to an old friend, a mechanical anatomy you’ve had memorized since you were sixteen. the first time your hands leave the two of us alone, you watch my terrified eyes and laugh. flying is the easy part, you say.

ii.   there was a time when explorers would name new lands after people they loved instead of themselves. somehow i’ve never found that idea comforting. it worries me that places out there exist that can wear my name better than i do. on nights when you’re gone, i spend hours trying to picture what an island looks like when it smiles.

iii.   even as she was bathed in the icy blood of a dying vessel, rose sang a love song to the stars. when i think of romance, i think of hands that dissolve into air so that hearts have to sprout wings just to find each other on the way down. i think of ships of dreams and flying machines.

iv.   these days, i have stopped waiting for the silhouettes of planes to paint demolition across the sunset. when i’m lonely, i play fleetwood mac records and spin around the apartment until i exorcize all the ghosts. i try to convince myself that when loving rhiannon, no one gets to win.

v.*  on our last night, i ask you what the hardest part of being a pilot is. you unstitch your eyes from the cerulean-sewn skyline and look at me. *landing, you say. your hand feels warm in mine.

1/15/2015

sitting behind the shed at the seminary
where we'd rolled off together for the first
time that night in the fall

but that's another story.
stolen lighter flick,
first hit's my honor

and soon my manibular ramus
is reaching towards orion's belt and
i realize with that it's your

favorite constellation and I think about how
I Have To Laugh plays, the Fleetwood mac
hurting the crests of my pink pulled lungs

swaying said manible to the slowly winding
upriver bass remember when LSD was legal?
she says and they used to test it on citizens?

it rips up through my own breath with the
guitar mucking creshendo and the words
it's over, it's all over and i'm glad to be free

and i laugh,  i cannot stop it,
i look up at your favorite constellation
we promised we'd look at at the same time

at new years and i feel very bad because it
is a long time ago perhaps even two weeks,
and the tobbaconist laughs when we ask for Ozium

and I feel bad i don't think of you that often
but then i stand up and say to my friends
hey where you going i'm hungry

and then the fleetwood mac's a story
on itself from the past and i feel my
legs growing on and i realize feeling guilt

because of you
is thinking of you
and i feel a bit better about myself

and dismiss it completely
and keep walking
making sure to cut across *Alexander Hall

dim
one small lamp
listening to dreams by fleetwood mac
instead
i let the music sprinkle light in my head
rays enter me like a transparent lens
my feet are moving but i didn't ask them
the rhythm has control of my muscles,
singing limbs
i'm an accepting hostage
strumming on the guitar
behind my eyelids
i could slide through life like this for years

I don't prefer music of this generation
The kind that only talks about getting a girl home
Having one night of intense stranger-***
And then what?
What do you say when you are done?
How long do you hold her
Before your arm falls asleep and she almost kicks you off the bed?
Do you give her cab money in the morning?
Do you call her when she gets home?
Those are the problems that those songs don't address

Music used to mean so much more
It was the kind about real love
Real love that you lost
Maybe that's why I like it so much
Because I could listen to it
And actually relate
Instead of imagining myself at a club
With intense music
Where an insanely attractive, yet toxic man walks up to me
And asks if I want to go home with him
What would I say?
"Uh, sir, I can't go home with you until you tell me your credit score..."
Or "Let's make like a fetus and head out..."
No, I'm too socially awkward for this
I can't separate physical attraction and emotions
I'm not good at *** with strangers
Perhaps because I know the dangers of strangers
Or maybe because I know the potential dangers of ***

I listen to the seventies and eighties
That is the age of Billy Joel, ELO, and Fleetwood Mac
The ones that actually loved