No need to say goodbye

The garage is full of lots of half packed brown boxes. In less than a month's time it's results day and I'm taking that as my cue to disappear for a while. Lucky for me that my hermit hideout is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. 

This temporary life is a short escape from civilization, consumerism and humanity in general before University begins mid-September. Trust me, a break followed by a completely fresh start is something I really want/need. However, there's a couple of things tugging at my heart strings. Leaving my closest friends is going to suck, especially as two of them had a baby in May. It's going so be weird not being able to sit on Chels' bed having conversations about penises or going to the pub with Jim, Sam and Baz. There better be good pubs in Scotland. Can't live without a good pub, me. It's taken a long time to get to the level we're on, and I'll admit that I have my reservations about whether there'll be a bunch of people up north as outspoken, provocative, crazy and intelligent as the solid fam I got down here. Maybe it's something that needs addressing anyway, the lack of enthusiasm I have for getting personal. 

Don't doubt that moving out, starting Uni etc is something I'm looking forward to. I can't wait! Just please, you people up there where I'll be soon, don't ask me to be anything that I'm not. And you people down here, where maybe one day I'll come back to visit, don't forget about me or think we're any less friends because of how far away we might be. 

And I guess I've only just got round to posting this:

Mate, you got me the wrong way around

We have been misinformed and someone has to pay. Chin up, chest out. Pout. Your organs are writhing in filthy blood and screwed up guts, clenching closed against the system they are rejecting. Whatever you say now, deaf ears will take on board so as to better understand the torment your flesh is causing. Toxins churn through young vessels, a catalyst to deformities your eyes will avert for years to come. Nausea disorientates what should have been developing on the inside; it is repulsive. Alone with yourself, at last.

There is too much time to think when you are more inside your head than out. From in here, what the mirror says makes no difference, for the mind's eye is all that makes sense. No abuse of the exterior will heal it. Deprivation or mutilation, it makes no difference other than to frustrate everyone who see the wounds but not who climbs the walls behind them. And you fear, not being alone but being forgotten.

Waiting for the end of the world

The Piano Pub

The credits could roll any second now. A conclusion that leaves the audience believing there is more to come for us, though not for them, and what hasn't been resolved will be. Quieter, out of the way, in our own way. Our excerpt was interesting. Everyone can relate to that. But the lights are too bright and show no sign of dimming. Jimmy's fingers stutter over the last notes and with the abrupt end to the music, everything slides back into focus. No more screen tests. Back to tinkering with the Slovakian piano and barely acknowledging the old men who smarm at how great we are on the way to do their business. One by one, alone or in pairs, they file through. And we were on the edge of ending the world.

-

Face down, laid bare. Oblivion overwhelmes every sense, sleep weighs on my eyelids. The piano's clunk is softer now there's a reason to be quiet. Don't drift, sink. Wherever it is my consciousness is going, the keys' mellow melody carries me. One hushed lullabye to lull an insomniac into the false security of sleep. It plagues me. Playing beauty into a cavern of weary longing, beneath the ribs that cage a heart straining to work. It could go on infinitely; concluding, secluding. But when I'm woken by exhaustion, it's gone and in place of the comforting sound, arms are wrapped around my chest. Hands over the beat, which keeps me dreaming and waking and waiting for the end.