We were brave and fearless kids! Our houses and our hearts connected (We’d knock at night through bedroom walls) Best friends! Beautiful we were, especially you. We could’ve run away together! You and me, like Ebony and Ivory Your long blonde hair and angel face I would’ve died for you. If I hadn’t, carelessly, lost interest and connected with Linda! She was older, cooler. Next-door neighbour, the other side, detached. Short black hair and boot-skates Our Sony Walkmans playing ‘Greatest Hits of the 80’s!’ Making me fall in love with A-ha and Wham! She made me smoke, chased with Silver Mints (although my Mother couldn’t smell!) and lie with her brother Peter in the tent in her garden all Summer long. I stayed every weekend in her tiny single bed holding onto the carpet as she slept to stop myself falling out. Created ‘The Gang of Five’ then! Sugar Daddy Séan- First house on our row, lived all alone, Wife and daughters gone and grown Gave us a home to hang out in Connected us five fatherless girls Tv, computer games, ‘Rubbish Day’ (all the cake, fizzy drinks and sweets we could gorge!!) Underage smoking and drinking, dossing school and playing cards He gave us it all and more We lived and died, became delinquent there. My first kiss! We went looking for white mice around the Green Road and you kissed me ‘under the light of the silvery moon’, you said. On the pier. Your mouth tasted of smoke. You wrote a note on my white sneakers- ‘Have fun in everywhere and everything you go and do’ (A note I live by) I burst through myself to connect with your body! Long black hair and chiselled face Rapturous kisses, electric current running wild inside! You enveloped me into your core! We would write such words of love! Passed by hand from school to school. Breathe in and out of each other’s mouths. Risky, unprotected sex making us high in the night as we babysat your little brother while your parents got pissed in the pub. (I dreamt about you every night for ten long years after you were gone) I never could resist you! (Even whilst in love with chiselled face and long black hair!) Smouldering gorgeousness! Bad boy! Made me scared and safe at once To see your sexy self To kiss you over and over And drown myself in you! Across decades Our fragmented connection.. Igniting Quenching Rekindling Sizzling Before dying, finally, a dirty death. You connected more with me than I with you In Italy You disconnected me from him back home (chiselled face and long black hair) and wouldn’t let me go I let myself be taken Foreign affair You took it too far and followed me home A cutie from school who sang ‘Faith!’ (I merged him in my mind with George Michael and loved them both fiercely!) Jumped some years later in front of a train He couldn’t ‘come out’. A bad boy again! (Same time as smouldering gorgeous man, he with SGM’s sister and I with them both!) Rebels without a clue! Sweet, soft heart beneath it all who’d hold me close under cover of darkness. So close I didn’t understand it Never got why he needed hugs so badly Until he shot himself and my heart shattered. A pair of sweet, sad, brown eyes who wouldn’t disrespect a drunken, dumb debutante, despite her pleas! Our only night together (Chiselled face and long black hair had to work. I crashed my own debs!) A fun guy from the pub! I thought it was fun He thought it was forever He cried when I broke us up (He married Linda) A fairy boy I kissed in the long grass of my old school where we worked together in an organic market garden, no longer there. He proposed a ‘handfast’ (So sweet and good) (I never could!) I wore his ring. Got back with Fun guy from the pub, despite Fairy boy’s loveliness. Antonello!, who knows where I found you! ‘G-Town!’ Italian stallion, second time ‘round! You stole my guitar! Your girlfriend back home wasn’t impressed when I wrote to her about us. Mairtín, shame you could never last longer than a kiss! Eric in Paris! The guy with the dogs! A boy, my friend for years! A boy, my very first friend! A boy, my friend and neighbour who penned me poems! A boy who was my Firework! Footloose and fancy free! Not a care in the world! We were crazy for one another! ‘Til he got too crazy for us both (He hanged himself, in the end) An alcoholic And another And another (Always searching for my father!) A mother’s absolute connection to three perfect baby boys. A bestie, we laughed and laughed and loved Soul mates, wild and free! Gone, when she found her own love. Another bestie, my girl Michelle Me, back-seated to alcohol, for her Always. A doting husband found online! ‘Plenty of Fish’ Connected through text We were hooked! To have and to hold ‘til the end. Introspections or Reflections on Collections of Affections Rejections Deflections Connections.
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That's absolutely fab Jenni ❤︎X
Long and complicated/ lived this poem- a really detailed insight! Thanks for sharing