now she's gone

I remember the day clearly, the day when the first person in the new group of co-habitees left halls of residence to return home for the summer. it was the dividing line between a wonderful year of self-discovery (and, being first year, limited amounts of study), and moving back home to all those things that were left behind, not to mention the unknown quantity of moving into houses with friends. it was all a bit too much for me and i decided not to go home and slob about on the dole - but that's a different story, so here's how i felt when she left...

Your Leaving

Surveying the scenes set so cruelly
In a brave new world - it doesn't fool me
That it has all come tumbling down.

There's such an air, that I can sense it.
You're leaving now - you never meant it -
But from now you'll not be around.

The heaving walls they come closer still
And threaten me; remind me of my hell,
A place I'd sooner forget.

They remind me of an empty life,
An embittered experience of my own life,
Of which my ways were set.

This is the way I wish to avoid
So passionately, never to be devoid
Of all feelings such as now.

So why has our new world fallen apart
And plunged me back into the dark?
I need to know why. And how.


July 1990

brave new world

October 2009 is an date that once seemed so far away as to be worthy of completely ignoring, but now approaches at such a rate that it is the subject of a new conversation each time i meet up with friends. It is the 20th anniversary of my starting university.

This is a landmark in many ways for me; 20 years is a bloody long time to acknowledge no matter what the event and it scares me at times to see how different i am now to the person who first walked into Woodville hall all that time ago. i'm also approaching a time when the time spent during and post-university is more than the time spent before it - a dividing line where old-me turned into new-me with no idea how long the change would last.

i remember writing the following poem as if it were yesterday (or 6,300+ days ago) as it was the night before my 20th birthday, and the first birthday i'd spent away from home, new personality and all. with a title inspired by Morrissey and a first verse inspired by Shakespeare, it tries a bit too hard and probably belongs more in sixth-form notebook, but for me it's an indelible reminder of change...

Last Of The Infamous Teenage Years

In the light of this brief, brief candle
Reality hits me, something I can't handle
Fast approaches this way.

And so, I look back with guilt and shame
And joy and laughter
And tears and pain -
Life fast approaches me this way.

Left on the wrong side of youth,
And only but a brief flicker away,
It's impossible to escape the truth,
Everywhere I hear it say
Child no more, you're twenty today!


December 1989