The Wanderer

You circle me relentlessly and I fail again to step away. I am a comet, moving really fast through space, always destined to crash and burn into you. When you left, I tried to walk it off, but I realised quickly that the world is not big enough, when you are moving through pain. 

 

I will never be what you want, yet we continue to play pretend…

The Abyss (love in the coronaverse)

I can still see you in that place with the high ceilings; grand, sparkling chandeliers swaying above our heads, shining smiles and beaming eyes over wine glasses and champagne flutes.

That place with the rooftop, where my grandpa used to work as a young man such a long time ago.

 

It’s almost as if time has given you two faces as the old merges with the new, yet we’ve remained the same despite our memories; at the bar, ordering G&T’s, your eyes are on me and I shiver in tempo with the beat.

 

Those nights in September, scented by a thousand unseen blooms and by too many piercing words leaving me with wounds that have still not fully healed.

 

Another Indian summer now and everything is different, but the air remains the same (it doesn’t care about our little human catastrophes).

 

As dusk falls, I watch you walk towards me with our drinks and I suddenly have an urge to run away because I didn’t think it would be like this, I didn’t think I would feel like this. I didn’t realise that time and space would merge under your hands and that I would have no option but to fall, helplessly, relentlessly - even though there was no ground beneath my feet.

 

Your rhythm is (as always) intoxicating.

 

You sit down and I marvel at the deep brown of your eyes and the broadness of your shoulders while I contemplate getting up, leaving, not turning back, ever. I know its fruitless. I know I am defenceless and when you open your mouth, I feel hollow and unprepared at your words. I jerk back in my chair - it’s not violent and you don’t notice, but my body keeps moving ever so slightly as if trying to find its equilibrium.

 

Then you speak of love and I am trying to make sense of your words but it’s hard, I always lost myself in you and now is no different than then.

 

I remember your salmon coloured shirt, your cowboy boots, your five o’clock shadow, but most of all I remember your eyelashes against your cheek when you slept next to me. They were the longest I had ever seen.  

 

As I take the first step, I know that I have no choice but to keep walking.

By the Waterfront

We met on midsummer night’s eve. We tried new places then; new drinks, new thoughts and as the contours of the night blurred, everywhere and everything merged into you. I walked home alone, as the fragrant night spiralled into a fiery dawn - the morning dew fresh underneath my feet, with the promise to take you to the beach, still echoing in the brittle light.

 

Do you remember?

I waited two weeks before I called you, and you still picked up on the first ring.

We walked through the park to get to where we were going. We may have stopped on the way; I don’t remember, but we made it just in time for dusk. You kissed me there for the first time by the water, and while the waves crashed I realised I was on fire under your hands. I remember my breath catching in my chest, my racing heart and white sand in my hair and on my skin - like a thin film of tiny silver beads reflecting in the cascading sunset.

Can you still see the ocean where you are?

 

Ruin me (if you dare)

"I miss you", she says as she takes a sip of her G&T.

Such a predictable drink, I have time to think to myself and then she reaches for my hand, but I flinch, causing her to do the same.

“Baby, those days are over, did you not see them pass?” My voice is soft, but relentless and I watch her shrink away further.

Her lipstick is red as usual, but there are deep shadows under her eyes these days and I wonder if it is hard for her to watch her own beauty slip away.

She used to be so vivid. She used to be so full of life and joie de vivre and I used to envy that she was the light, shining so bright in every room she entered. I would wake up to the squirrel wheel of everyday life, I would put on my hard hat and walk out the door and the image of her would keep me moving forward. The thought that this woman, in all her glory, had given me her heart so completely was intoxicating to me.

She is still a beauty. Capturing as many glances as ever, but her allure is fading in her own eyes and that makes all the difference.  

“Don’t you have anything to say to me?” She takes a sip of her drink and I can tell she is doing it out of nervousness, just to have something to do.

I have her in the palm of my hand, I could crush her with a slight movement of one finger and it is an exhilarating feeling.

I look at her, really look at her for the first time tonight. “Do you remember that time when we climbed that gate together?”

A smile lights up her face. “Yes, I do.”

It is clear from her expression that the moment was just as paramount to her as it was to me. She is pensive, waiting for what is next to come. The smile still lingers in her eyes and I decide to crush it because it simpler.

“I think that was the moment when I realised I didn't love you.”

She trembles and her face falls for a second. Then she surprises me and I suddenly remember why I did love her (and also why I just lied about it).

“Fine, but let’s order one more bottle before we go.”

When you leave

I watch your back move away from me and I try to follow, but it is like I am trying to shake myself from one of those nightmares when you are always on the verge of waking up; the air is heavy to breathe and my feet won’t move forward as I watch you disappear into the hazy distance.

I don’t know if it is better to stay right here or to wake up and find myself alone.

Ta!

We are living in the age of a pandemic, but the air is still warm in July

Things are tough, but the sun is out today reminding me that I am human

The outline of the city is the same and the gin is smooth, as is this summer eve in the heart of east London.

I am thinking about you. Wondering how you are? (Just like me, patience never was your virtue.) And if your face is warmed by the sun tonight.

I was told to be quiet and kind, but I failed.

I was told to watch my words and to keep a straight face, but I failed.

I was told I was too much, too soon in all kinds of ways, but you never agreed.

It’s July and I stare at your words as I move through requests for financial resilience and collection fund accounting and I think to myself that I did something right even though I never succumbed to the expected.

Have you been to Paris?

Cheers,

Life is ok, despite everything. You are not here, but it’s OK, despite everything. Things will be different soon - we will be drinking Guinness and Gin and tonic and it will be like time has not passed at all. We will be in London, we will be in Malmö and we will inhibit the world. We will have date night and we will learn as we lean into it, as we go, because we never knew how to do it before. We will play it by ear, because in the end that is what this life is all about – adapting to notes and a melody that you are not used to.

I’ve got a new dress for the occasion – it’s blue and I know you will like it.

This life. Munich, Shenzhen, HongKong, London, Paris – all encapsulated by emotions, huddled up in colours. How can I combine all these emotions in one go? How can I show all this love?

I guess there will always be Paris. There will always be that woman in black with the silver cigarette holder. There will always be you and me, but this time we will be on point...

Strawberry Gin

You shield your eyes, your breath is compromised, strained, too fast; this is the time of Corona. Like thoughts in my mind, your breath is here but not, so we both keep chasing on and I wake every morning, in this crowded room with too many things that are not mine and I smell my impertinence in the air as I throw the sheets away from my pale, naked frame.

I want to walk with you, wordlessly through winding streets, through all the years of words not spoken, leaving us free of a past that has chained us down for too long.  

In my mind there has always been a desk near a window where I look out and see a moor explode in a cascade of colours. I watch you moving across the wild, while I put my pen to paper; your breath alive (unlike now) and we are far away from this city, far away from these days of strawberry gin and basic survival.

These are the days of Corona and I keep silent, but my heart still beats next to yours…

Lilac Street

Down by the canal; I feel you through the pavement, through the asphalt. I pass by shops and vendors, people shuffling on down the sidewalk - the early spring light embracing London. These memories were never ours, yet you are here, always here, walking next to me - even though the only sound I hear is the echo of my own footsteps. I walk on; floating images surprising me with their crispness, their sharpness and focus, but they all have fuzzy edges - like polaroids taken in a distant past. It's a strange equation; I lived through it all alone and you were never here, yet you never really left me.

I get mystified by how this city screams your name.

Bonnie and Clyde

Your eyes meet mine over that first drink since forever and I know you are thinking the same thing I am. How the hell did we get here – are we moving backwards? X marks the spot where we fell apart and even though we never had a shotgun shot in the dark I still wear your words like tattoos. You reach across the table for my hand just like always.

“I have the getaway car – are you brave enough?”, you say as you finish your drink in one swig, then you are on your feet and my mind is a mess (as always around you).

I think about the fact that only the young can run. I think about the fact that all is relative and then I follow you out into the night towards a different life in-between maybes.  

Just down the road

Some days, some hours, minutes and seconds away I know another reality is hiding. The pathway is only visible at twilight; exploding and imploding in silver light pouring out of the sky. The harsh lines of the cubicles surrounding me are blurring - the shadows are getting longer and longer until they seem to reach the sky, all the while the silver of the dusk overpowers London, leaving me spellbound, enclosed by the delicate beauty of life.

Walking the Walk

Alleys of grey slab and concrete surround our street just like they do all other pathways in this merciless and majestic city. The difference is that their curves remain soft and tranquil as they seem to caress the bend ahead. I will take our street with me, but the rest I give away to the lowest bidder. The hard-lined skyscrapers and cubes you call houses, the busy road where cars pass endlessly towards somewhere, anywhere but here. Empty eyes and hungry bellies in lonely alleyways, hollow faces in doorways staring back at me as I walk on towards something luckier. It is an evening that manages to be deadly silent, but still so loud I can hardly breathe – the knot in my chest increasing with every sound until it consumes me. I gasp in the cold winter air of a new year, the blood pumping, my heart beating hard against my ribcage. The door to the world just closed and I can feel it in every cell, in every strand of strawberry blonde hair – the knowledge of something lost radiates through the very core of who I am. 

Change is approaching fast now, and it is welcomed. I know it will have a salty twang, but life is never one dimensional so a bit of sweet and sour will be thrown in as well. Regardless, I will remain upright. I am ready. You are not here, but still guiding my path towards where I should have been (stayed?) all along. This road, these cubes, this city of concrete and steel will be what my nightmares are made of for a while but that’s OK, I don’t sleep much these days.

I’ll take our street with me into a different future though. See you down there in my dreams if nowhere else.

I am ready.

Heart in Hand

There is a hole in my chest were my heart used to be. You took it with you when you left and I was never brave enough to ask for it back. Things are different now - roles reversed as the cold wind blows us towards something new and improved. Strangely enough you are wearing a hat. It is pulled down firmly which means I can't see your eyes. It doesn't really matter though; I know them by heart just as I do every delicate detail of you. As usual I feel like I am cheating death when you reach for my hand across the table. As usual I feel like there is nowhere to be but here when you lift your tired gaze and meet my eyes for the first time tonight. Your face is pale and hollow and there is a silent desperation in every breath.

Then you smile your childlike smile and I decide in an instant that I want you to hold on to my heart for just a little while longer.  

While I was dreaming

Off the Map

The streets are sleek with rain; the grey surface reflecting the streetlights as I drive on endlessly over viaducts and through tunnels – towards where my heart has been kept for a very long time, via the arteries and veins of my expansive city. The contradictory nature of this place – so incredibly heartless but also loving, so callous and cruel, yet still warm and embracing.

I am wide awake as I move into the right lane. My turn is coming up now. I have always wondered if will look back once my decision has been made and I guess I will know soon enough. It is for certain that my world is less empty since you came along and I am petrified to go back to how it was before there was you. I no longer do black or white, only shades - yours is darker than mine but with more sparkle. If we merge will the shade mirror the rain-drenched streets I am driving on?

As I take my turn (without looking back) I can feel myself start to smile.

Ironic, iconic

In between days I step away from you; finding my escape in chords, in the notes flowing endlessly from my speaker. Change is sure to follow and I am calmer these days, but if this is maturity I ask it to kindly fuck off!

A new chapter, but bringing me right back to where I started. I am not the same, not anymore; I have been reshaped and remoulded riding uncontrollable waves, always chasing new and illusive moments - I am not sure you will like me now and I do care, but very little. I close my eyes, but I still feel wide awake, like my nerves are too close to the surface. There is not a single day when I don’t think about our drive through the city - you always did hit me straight between the eyes, like a ton of bricks. Who needs new love when your heart is perpetually closed?

I am here whenever you want to ride the waves with me…

To let go

There is a new kid in town and he has golden spurs attached to pointy cowboy boots. He is larger than life in the night-time, but in the harsh daylight he thankfully gets smaller and more manageable. Most cities are too big for him, he needs the wide, vast wilderness in order to feel life properly underneath his feet; the air whipping his lungs, every breath a frenzy sucked from his body almost violently. His happiness is tied to that wind, to change and to the costal waves crashing in from the sea. He opens his hands and gives you the rainbow and he feeds you sunshine (even though he has none himself). Suddenly you feel less alone and suddenly you want your own set of spurs even though you’ve spent a lifetime making fun of them with your friends. In this moment gold is the only way to be as he softly takes your hand and asks you to just surrender.

When an outfit does not measure up

You tell me the pale lilac shirt I gave you such a long time ago is still with you, even though you are a travelling salesman who never stays long enough in one place to feel anything at all. You tell me life was richer then; months and years passing underneath our feet while we were busy hiding in the shadows in order to not get hurt. It’s a nice little alcove you have pencilled out for yourself – free of accountability so that you can stay in your play-pin a bit longer, avoiding boredom, avoiding trying to catch anything at all. How does it feel to move at speed but not at all? I would give you sterling silver/dollars/euros in order to find out and I suspect I might regret it. Your extravagant heart, your extravagant hands – I used to love them beyond words as I did you, but we are both covered in ash now.

I am afraid one lilac shirt will change nothing.