Enduring Love
Enduring Love It’s the view that does it. I’m feeling new, like I’ve never met them before; Guinevere in cathedral grounds, balconies draped with ivy and a rose. Nimble fingers shy around my hand, the way he smiles with serious eyes. But walking off the edge of the earth, one slow glow-worm train coasting in Damon’s wake, the sight is identical to those Wirksworth days, the potholes he warned my childlike glee against. Ria’s lost, but she’s just far behind, perspective hopelessly skewed. I’m looking with a writer’s eye, and he is looking at me. Are you the one?, and I’m plunged back into Bedingfield, Marcus, The Matrix. Not knowing who wants me, where or why. A cathedral, a cobbled street; a child searching for stickleback with intense concentration and a small yellow net. These shires are so similar, and despite everything, I can’t help missing him. Wearing both their watches, locked in the shackles of a friendship I don’t deserve, I set myself to their time. *** He adopts your colour scheme for no reason at all. In revision, the personal pronouns are reversed, despite the spaces between us, and the familiar feeling that I’m not getting this quite right. Genes are my positive, conditioning the reverse, and I can’t see beyond. Immortalised on film, both looking the other way. He meets me on the beach, but I can only experience these things alone. With a slight flex of the thigh, swans glide away; a reversal of my time with James, the day on Port Meadow he took me in his arms. Fighters drone above our heads, and, as the flight instinct kicks in, there’s a warning look from beneath the waves she hates. Her statues silver-plated, but mine are gold; one Midas already felled, hazel eyes reflected in the next. A year later, I give up perfection, forced by someone I loved. The pedestals felled in their relief. I don’t believe in Romeos or heroes any more. I can’t reflect perfection in his eyes, those beautiful eyes. But something in me still cannot leave. *** Clusters of images flood my mind. A girl who might be Kyra; freckle-spattered, pale, a deep scarlet sheath at her waist. Plas Gwyn, Elgar’s home from 1904, and its incongruously suburban Nimrod Drive. Tinged pink with warning, the sky studded with stars, every available inch of space; hands on hips, hair impatiently tossed back, Dana in his flashlight gaze. His camera, my pen. When do we stop living through other people? Five of us watch a film, only a couple still dreaming of a happy ending. The sun vanishes, its song on endless loop. They chatter in the back; we sit, silent, in front. There is no atonement. Can be no enduring love. *** Razors leave raised red welts across vast pale thighs and I wonder when I’ll ever stop harming myself. Radiohead’s slow groove punctuates, interrupts; words flit through my head, snatches of songs. I used to dream about this when I was a little boy… I know this is paradise Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives… I never thought it would end up this way. Nightmares rend my sleep, warning me. Old flames, their sisters dying in foreign lands. Lean and sleek, I dream of Arabs moving in the night. He wakes, and I’m unsure, but certainty got us nowhere before. There’s a long silence, and a pause outside the door. *** He envisions my losing a fight for life, and I comment, too lightly, that I might not fight very hard. Careering downhill, there’s the look he gives no one else; a sharp glance, shadowed lashes, indescribable knowledge flashing across his face. 22 years have left me with 57 seconds, 800 pounds and three friends. I’m not sure how long this can go on. You’re walking a fine line. We are standing on the edge.
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose leaves
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Just seventeen - 17 March 2004
Roads to freedom - 25 February 2004
Confessions of a failed self-harmer - 25 February 2004
Manchester, united - 25 February 2004