Light Of Experience, By Neil Carter

© 2009 eil Carter (Text and Images) Rendered into digital format by Frater Pyramidatus

Night Jazz black leather chrome song. Summer night chanting chanting moonlight moon vibe people calling me over there but not me paralysed no I can’t move no I can’t move at all. She won’t let me sleep and she doesn’t like my head she doesn’t like me at all but she is with me not against me understanding though they seem to want me dead gone out over there or anywhere anywhere but here right here in the hole in my head the deep hole in my head that goes down and down and dark and cold and where I live. There is some neon there it lights the people like a film set and of course like a film set it’s raining and the pavement is black and shiny reflective gleaming. I put a cigarette out with the toe of my boot and draw myself small inside the long black coat protects me from the cold makes me feel old keeps me down I think I should burn it buy a denim jacket or an old leather instead. There is not much nice in the city everything that looks nice is really corruption and greed and oppression. The people are not nice either they don’t like me I can tell they whisper about me they don’t like me at all I don’t belong here they say I am not like them too rich too poor too straight too bent too effete too bitchy too stupid too bright too colourful too happy too sad too lonely too tall. Yes they don’t like me at all. I upset them. They are upset because I don’t freak enough when I am intoxicated, they are upset because I am tactful, they are upset and now they want to make me upset, but I don’t upset easily because I am used to this bull this kind of horse manure has wallpapered my existence for a long time and I don’t give a damn anymore. I have become numb to the awfulness deaf to their protestations idiots may rule the world but I am still the master of my own destiny. In this place the walls are positively Tolkienesque dingy rainsoaked stonework an artform in itself and decay and neglect have turned old world into food for poets and painters. In this place two in every ten people are real the rest are clones stereotypes you can write them off dismiss them they are not important. The two people left will be like you bewildered incredulous at the idiocy that surrounds us amazed that people are inclined to accept the ridiculous solutions that we are sold as sense.

Like the last time anyone used their imagination was a good twenty years or so back then when there wasn’t a shoddy but convenient dull answer for everything. We have taken the quick route and missed the poetry all the quality all the intricacy has gone out of life. Minimalist simplicity has won the day and our minds are enslaved and starving. Modern life is meaningless the world has gone Formica the intricate tapestry replaced by plastic moulding everything stripped down to the noun a chair a table a shoe a car a train a hat a man oh god it’s awful the poet in me thirsts for some meaning anything stimulating something with complexity something to puzzle over texture the weave something that is not new and smooth and shiny something real. Hesitantly though I must concede that I am probably barking mad. By most peoples’ standards. I am not introspective anymore I used to be but I tired of introspection it was all written by the same author all painted by the same painter I contribute but really Michelangelo Raphael they had the edge there was still mystery legend in their day. What on earth did they want from me anyway I asked myself as I stared at the wall on earth was all that ABOUT? AYWAY? The strangest days I ever knew. All I managed to understand was that leafy suburbia held as its secret an underground revolution behind closed doors but what this revolution wanted from me, honestly, god only knows. Was it my body, my mind, my thoughts, my soul? What? I really cannot say. But whatever they wanted they wanted it a lot and I would have gladly given it whatever it was had someone had the sense to explain it to me in some way what on earth all that strangeness was really all about. Did they want my wisdom teeth, my nasal, hair, my toothbrush, my duvet cover, I am afraid I really can’t say, but whatever it was, they wanted it, but my lack of insight perplexed them, and me, myself, at every turn.

And, all the while, older men, you are not kidding are you? Older, older men, that’s one way of putting it I suppose. Senior Service, no wonder I don’t make love anymore, not in years, like some kind of protest at the extreme poor quality of prospective lovers that this world was offering me. A kind of strike, industrial action my celibacy. A protest at the poor quality of person and appalling men that were being offered to me. Nothing at all thank you very much. Even animals like me have some kind of standards. And I still moved forward and resisted the urge to simply rest and reflect. A journey THROUGH life all the time searching and thirsting for meaning. All the time amazed and astounded by the shocking greyness of most people. The haze that envelopes my life is due to a lack of any anchorage to another human being. There is a freedom gained, of course, resulting from full independence from all others, for the purpose of friendship, romance, whatever. But in being alone one loses reference points and solidity to depend on, in order to feel, well, real actually. And a dreamlike quality of life arises. All that I’ve been through, many people would not have survived, and I am not particularly tough myself. The medication used to come on like waves of nausea and numbness alternating and crashing in again and again. And the isolation well I am isolated now but when I was really alone it was horrible although at times for short periods of time I enjoyed being one amongst strangers because it gave me a buzz to be so independent and in charge of my destiny to an extent. In the summer I would get sunburnt because the medication used to make our skin sensitive to sunlight, as a side effect. One time I had shaved my head and had cuts all over my scalp as I had used a disposable razor. I went out in the hot summer sunshine for about an hour that’s all but had to flee inside as my head was burning and the razor cuts combined with the acute sunburn was so painful. I likened it to being stung on the scalp by a thousand angry wasps. I went inside and a kind young nurse dabbed my head with cotton wool soaked in calamine and with words of sympathy and her medical care my agony was soon soothed. They dug out a baseball cap from the hospital stores after that.

And from then on every summer for years I always had baseball cap, whatever the fashion. In hospital there are days and nights when really nothing much happens. These days are rare as mental hospitals are busy frenetic places often full of people wailing people crying people fighting violent people putting their heads through windows. But during those quieter times the time I spent in hospital was not so unpleasant side effects aside. I could lie on my bed for hours remembering how to relax putting myself back together again peaceful moments to rest and recharge my batteries sedated yes absolutely stoned on antipsychotics but the relief the huge sigh of peace and tranquillity enabled me to draw a line underneath the anarchy and awful tensions that forced me to hospital in the first place. Strangely it was usually the first few days or so that were often quiet and event free so that, as I used to self-harm the peace came hand in hand with care and good nursing for my cuts, gentle, tender nursing for my physical injuries and peace and calm to soothe my mind of the horrors that had caused me to lacerate myself. One time my left forearm, the top of the forearm was an area of slashed flesh four inches or so of red exposed raw flesh and congealed blood, nurses would be very sensitive and almost maternal as they tutted gently and cooed concerns “that looks a little infected”. They would praise my courage as they dabbed the wounds with iodine and surgical spirit. My chest was badly cut one time I did it with glass if I remember correctly, having locked myself in my bathroom in my flat with big shards of broken milk bottle. I had smashed one in the back garden with a brick for the express purpose of hacking away at myself later. Four, five inch cuts below my nipples on my chest one each side, deep cuts that bled voraciously for a short while then congealed and hardened into scabs. In the hospital they had said that it really needed stitches but they didn’t stitch it because the scars would show much more if they had. “They will scar” those kind nurses explained almost blaming themselves or such was their tone, for any future scarring that would result. Almost saying “we could’ve done better” which of course was patently not the case, they really had done all they could.

I still have the scars on my chest on my arms, but they have faded with some time, I suppose we all have scars anyway, some of them show some of them don’t so much. As for the nurses, bless their hearts because they care when you’d begun to think that nobody did. So I lay down on my bed full of tranquilizers and sleepers, they always dose you right up when you first arrive at the hospital those first few days pumped full of enough tranx to bring down a rampaging bull elephant a rogue elephant. I couldn’t keep my eyes open enough to do anything but rest on my bed the first few days I didn’t eat or drink, save for the water that kind nurses brought me in plastic jugs and plastic cups yes, plastic they said in case I got up to my old tricks again and used the glass to break into weapons to use against myself to try to force some feeling from my numb and plastic body. Strangest thing, as I lay there, my eyelids would close and I would drift in and out of consciousness and all I could see in my mind’s eye were Tom and Jerry cartoons, kids’ cartoons Tom and Jerry beating each other up in violent slapstick comedy all played out in my own mind’s eye, but stranger still these visions had an ephemeral nature as if I could barely make them out as if they were ghosts of cartoons, there alright but only just and just beyond comprehension. Like watching Disney without my specs on or slapstick cartoons shown in redundant film stock in the mind of an audience of one. I was haunted by these images I tried to ignore them, but I saw them anyway resigning myself to their ephemeral yet insistent presence, so irritated by the dichotomy, they were there, but they were not, only tangible just enough to annoy, not tangible enough to observe or enjoy. The, sleeping for a while the cartoons became real in dreams and I would wake laughing or with a jolt as Tom got his comeuppance smashed in the face with a frying pan, his head used to be left frying pan shaped and vibrating like a tuning fork. Poor Tom. Remember Tom and Jerry? The women in those places. Oh the women. Now there’s a kettle of fish. The loveliest people but so messed up. I’ve had so many women cry on my shoulders in those places, hospitals, loads of times a beautiful wonderful person crying her eyes out over their bullying husbands their addictions, their alcoholism, their depression, their hallucinations, their delusions, their weight, their self-harm.

But they are so courageous… I love women more since these hospital friendships. Thrown together like strangers meeting on a train. I have lost my romantic involvement with women over the years. But my eyes were opened to those brave beautiful women and I understand women better now. I’ve gained respect for women because many women seem to go through hell and remain so brave, so charming, so brilliant, so funny. To keep your sense of humour in such circumstance is heroic in itself, and to remain so humane so clever so charming so good and so cool with all that going on, yes that is really something. Take anorexia, the illness in itself so destructive, the treatment so painful, the recovery often so slow, but to be able to laugh about force feeding only half an hour after the event that brought tears of humour to my eyes whilst tears of sympathy were also appearing. That woman had me in stitches, I was holding my sides begging her to stop her hilarious anecdote. And she knew, she knew, she was being funny, oh for goodness sake I was thinking what a crime it was that the girl wasn’t on the stage. These women amaze me, they’ve got a black eye and a broken nose from the violent husband back at home and their primary concern in hospital is keeping a maternal eye on the fifteen year old boy that’s on the ward, in the hospital because he was homeless then he was sectioned and the kids got a broken arm and she’s helping him with his bandages. Guts. These women have Guts. About those cartoons, I am suddenly aware that I ought to make it clear that I don’t generally hallucinate Tom and Jerry cartoons. And I don’t think it was the illness. So I am left with the honest conclusion that it was the tablets that were doing it. For goodness sake don’t tell the kids! They’d be raiding the drugs cabinet for a really wild Tom and Jerry trip! Not good. I think personally that antipsychotics should not be given to kids until they are, well, not kids anymore, eighteen in other words, until then, give them the benefit of the doubt, they are only kids, if they appear psychotic, we should realise that it is just hormones, adolescent hormones. All these youngsters need is more time, society should hang fire on the tranx, they might after all be on them for the rest of their lives if you start them now, give them a couple of years grace? Incidentally a good dietician can sort out most problems, but then again the psychiatrists have been promising me a referral to a dietician for the last twenty years. They’ve also promised me in turns a psychologist, a behaviourist

psychologist, hypnotherapy and all manner of referral follow-up that never materialises in the real world. The only follow-up anyone ever gets is a community psychiatric nurse and the meds, that’s all, they promise you the earth, don’t believe it, when you get back home nothing comes your way. They close the file, put you back in the filing cabinet and it’s on to the next appointment with the next patient. In all honesty that’s how it seemed, and in my experience general practitioners do the same, no follow-up, just empty promises. Very charming and all that. A lot of people in mental hospitals have one thing in common. Their illnesses, whatever they are, are a response to aggression and violence. They are people who can’t handle aggro. Most ordinary people endure a lot of aggro, hassle, violence, daily. And mentally ill people, anorexics, self-harmers, schizophrenics, manic-depressives, all of them have developed symptoms of one mental illness or another because these are sensitive people who can’t handle the aggression that ordinary people take for granted is going to be there. Most people just put up with it. The mentally ill go crazy instead. It’s that simple. Obsession used to rule my life. I was obsessed, shame, but there it is, I was obsessed with that thing that turns men’s minds more often that most things that can make a man go crazy. I am speaking of spooky weird books talking of bizarre rituals and strange beliefs. I got really into those books, “maaan”, and I went comprehensibly insane. These type of books could have been written with the expressed purpose of driving the readership loopy. They are bad books and I would advise anyone to leave the awful things alone. I was throwing runes obsessively consulting them so often that they became more important than the decisions that I was trying to make in the first place. Books like these brought out the darker side of my imagination and my personality and so increased my suffering exponentially as the obsessions developed and continued. Now, I am a nice bloke, I’m moderate gentle, sensitive, but the personality disruption left me as a person I did not recognise I did not recognise the person that I had become. I had become unsociable, sociopathic, withdrawn, unlikeable, strange. Utterly unlike the real me. Over the years since these strangest of days my real self my real personality, the likeable happy go lucky nice bloke that I really am has taken back the controls and my recovery, halting but progressive, is now under way. Obsessions are controlled, delusions and personality disorders are diminishing. But you know, it all would have worked out so much better without those awful books in the first place.

I can sing you know I really can, I can sing like an angel like a man possessed like a devil a demon other worldly a voice that comes from the spirit world I channel it through me a voice that echoes with the pain of life and the loneliness of my death. She tears me in two this girl this woman who I love she used to love me she doesn’t love me anymore and yet we are still together sleep together eat together walk together but always I know that she doesn’t love me anymore it’s so hard to take I can’t win her back there’s nothing I can do she doesn’t love me anymore and it’s awful. She tells me she loves me but I know she doesn’t love me anymore the words are hollow she is hollow I cried in my sleep last night it’s either hate that she feels for me now or nothing at all she doesn’t love me anymore and though she lies in my arms she’s not there and right now I just want my baby back. And that thing I did to myself that hurt that really hurt I have never known pain like that oh god it hurt I was just stuck there like a victim of Vlad Dracul I couldn’t get free I was just stuck there and it hurt it hurt so much inside myself awful pain like terror like fire like falling like dying like torture like too much pain to much living too much modern life too many old dusty blankets too many dingy refuges for too many dingy people too many wasted people too many people who are only half a person too many wandering half life shells too many people who never come to anything wanderers lost egg shells broken lives hideous little scenarios between people who don’t matter never did matter never will matter dirty lost eggshell people half lives inconsequential half lives. Such a shame that they should be like this poor broken fools. …What if a respected leading psychologist should be brave enough to stand up and tell the world that this thing is too ordinary too run of the mill too regular an occurrence too common and occurrence to be monstrous. That it is a personality type or a series of personality types that we are dealing with nothing more nothing to get to upset about too many of them for them to be an aberration something wholly unnatural too many of them everywhere Uncles Aunts sisters brothers mothers fathers the bloke down the road next door at work which means that what we are dealing with is more like an everyday occurrence a series of personality types nothing more science society could recognise this wake up! Could come the cry from the revolutionary courageous psychologist, this is much more like ordinary life than you are admitting too there are too many of these often wonderful people for this thing to be some isolated rare event this is some part of the human condition a not uncommon piece of the human experience and furthermore a lot of these

people are not freaks and criminals and monsters but in fact in their hearts to their souls some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet who actually really care about other people whoever they are who live their lives enriching other peoples’ lives encouraging the weak a helping hand for the downtrodden crazy society can’t continue to demonise this huge section of humanity let’s see it from their point of what if it’s not a problem what if they really are not hurting anyone what if they would never wish for this part of their personality to become destructive and painful for anyone it’s just a part of life it’s just a part of the human experience we could learn a lot from some of these people they are often very brave very dignified so very courageous very sensitive very sensible very down to earth very wise let’s consider this rationally it’s every fourth person you meet these people can’t really be monsters most of them like everyone else and people that you love respect admire care about. This is personality type not monstrous aberration. Do you see the picture I am painting? Isn’t this how it really is? It’s a new Millennium? What is this strange pious war that you wage on your own brothers and sisters? Are they really so much worse than you? What is this horse manure? Are they really so much worse than any of you? I know that we would have to restructure reshape society that’s what the Renaissance was all about that’s what the age of enlightenment was all about. Let’s be rational let’s think this through without our dim witted pious prejudices. It’s your brother your sister. A member of your own family missing your love and unnecessarily hiding behind a wall of silence fear and intimidation probably secretly thinking all the time “I wonder what the fuss is about anyway?” Who do they think I am… the Devil himself? It’s so normal, so average, so everyday, isn’t it? Really? A lonely person needs patience and understanding nor fear and isolation. Stop making them feel so isolated, and lonely, in the first place. An enlightened society would seek to understand and embrace such a large group of people in its midst. In its own household. The more we care and attempt to understand them, the more we diffuse any unwelcome situations, duck. Guilty is a horrible way to feel but in my book the very worst emotion to be stuck with has got to be jealousy. Real deep down gut burning unexpressed evil venomous jealousy is just about the most horrible way to be the most appalling emotion to feel. When I experienced unexpressed jealousy that was just about the most painful few months of my entire life. The worst emotion that I had ever experienced on this earth. If you ever feel jealous, for god sake express

that emotion tell someone, talk about how you feel. Don’t do what I did which was exactly the opposite, I bottled it up told no one how I was feeling did not attempt to express myself and for months it was as if I was burning in hell. I couldn’t speak about it I was struck dumb with a burning jealousy. I wouldn’t recommend it. I came so naturally to me, and those perfect gentlemen treated me with respect. They were gentle with me and though it was me seducing them, I invariably let them believe that they were seducing me. And, instinctively, they understood, they played the game, they were very cool. They made me feel like a million dollars and they made me feel SPECIAL, they were perfect gentlemen each and every one until the morning the next day a few days later when the spells wore off and spoilt they acted up. So you are so special? What about me, me, me well what about you? You got what you wanted you had an interesting experience to giggle and whisper about with all those other queens? But, you know, that’s just me being cynical. I always ended it, I always initiated it and throughout I always controlled every more being empowered like this gave me a huge buzz and what’s more it was always me who decided that I had the power in the first place. It was a nice game and I made the rules so I had to win I don’t lose for kicks, after all, who does? With girls it was always so much more complicated after all there were two ego’s, the size of my own, at stake, with girls who wanted after all much the same as the game I played with guys and although I could quite happily provide and enjoy my ironic role reversal to Prince Charming I soon tired of all that other stuff the talk of love and romance the so predictable lines that had I not spoken myself so many times with so many different blokes. When one has become an accomplished player the game itself can lose its appeal I always knew what they would say next and I always knew exactly what my line should be to achieve my desired outcome. And with girls a whole load of other stuff becomes important but they don’t know how to bring all that stuff to the table and try as I might I couldn’t help so I had a paralyzed women in my hands and there was nothing she or I could do about it and they became suffocated and I felt much the same to be honest and realised I wanted out and let them down

gently and went straight into the arms of the next guy every time. Love had become demoted from a life for two to just a game for two to play and somewhere along the line I seemed to have lost all capacity for genuine feelings of romantic love it just ceased to happen for me I never felt the feelings anymore the longing the excitement the buzz the agonies the thrill the lovesick pangs of something approaching worship of another human being. No one now was deserving of me as a lover to revolve around them pandering to their every need, want, whim. No one is deserving anymore these dusty freaks they just don’t deserve it buddyboy. People like these new dusty losers they just don’t offer me anything like enough in return for the kind of love that we knew about all those years ago. And until they do? I will wait and see. Were we not all like that sometime when we were younger? Doesn’t THAT mean before we matured? Doesn’t that make them just A LITTLE IMMATURE? For the love of Dracula. The ache in my side like a rib that has come loose and it hurts like my memories of you and you and you and the headaches are rare now but not as rare as the sight of you or you looking brave on the street people unique doing their thing this is me this is what I am what I look like sound like dance these are the clothes that I wear this is how I love how I speak this is how I breathe not just another no impact oh yes one of those saw a thousand of those the last year or so no light in their eyes like you and you and you someone was home someone was in I wasn’t alone with people like you and you and me in the room heads held high doing our thing being ourselves being interesting fascinating anticipating a glimpse of you and you and you oh just like Romeo and Juliet my heart beat so much faster just for a flash from your eyes yes you and you and you made me feel so alive yes you and you and you all of you today was a good day today I would be seeing you and you and you and you shone people don’t shine like that anymore no one laughs like you anymore no one thinks no one feels like you anymore. Where did it all go wrong? What is this new life who the hell are all these dull usurpers anyway? Even if you won’t see me can’t you remind these dullards that they haven’t a hope in hell of ever coming near to replacing you. And you knew me, “I THOUGHT YOU LIKED HIM?” I can’t forget you won’t forget you I love a lot of people those days. A belief unshakeable that you had a light in your eyes like I had a light in my eyes I did I had a light in my eyes and so did you don’t you ever miss me like I miss you like missing an arm a leg an ear and eye? Don’t you ever feel that for ME like I feel that for YOU?

I don’t understand how you could OT feel like that about me from time to time because I know that you must because I KEW you, all of you, I KEW YOU, all of you, I KEW YOU, the people I knew would feel that cry from time to time about me try to find me from time to time even in some pub to look for that guy with that look in his eyes. The people I knew, they care, the people I knew would come and find me put their arms around me stroke my say everything’s ok you’re with your friends again now love is back in town now an end to all your suffering the people I knew would not be able to stop themselves from still loving me come looking for me, still wanting to be with me putting their arms around me wanting to hear my laughter wanting to see my eyes my hair my words my clumsy dance my beautiful ways of walking talking loving thinking being oh yes if I ever knew you at all then you all miss me as much as I miss you. No chance mate this may be hard to understand, the dream I can’t control, my behaviour I can, yes I admit I just don’t have enough of a grip I admit yet you tell me I am hip oh yes I am so stupid although I am stuck with a bad man’s dream it seems but I am not a bad man myself no not a bad man not a good man I am just a madman I have never really hurt anyone like that but these people voices they don’t leave me alone ever. Is my heart so tiny has it never grown or is my head frozen in time although I can’t change everyone around has seen me shine shine shine. Oh I live like the undead I know it’s not cool the lack of control but it could be really could be with a little understanding from you just like everyone so could you please even though you might think me not a man I never hurt anyone indeed lately I never even get so involved with anyone and I don’t hate anyone I am not hateful even if others find it in their hearts to hate me. As for you well you are the future of love when did I ever tell you that you cannot be free? Who or what do you think I am anyway I’ve become a man whilst waiting for you to help and meet me halfway meet me halfway it’s the only thing I ever tried to say I know I am immoral and everything but really this thing has got way way out of proportion I will never be the monster as you know all too well I am too in touch with my emotions meet me halfway. I can’t put the blame on anyone else and I’ve racked my brain but it seems this thing really did begin with me. But all this time and even

now I am waiting for you to meet me halfway that’s all I’ve been trying to say all this time listen the night may be dark with me but the sun still shines all day for everyone. I sometimes feel quite ashamed shame on me if this thing really began with me racked my brain can’t find no one else to blame shame on me then please meet me halfway that all I’ve ever tried to say all these years please please meet me halfway. Everything looked blackened around the edges and everything was either claustrophobic and red hot or freezing cold icy icy no friends no allies now just me and against nature does nature hate me want me dead oh no god everything is so painful sharp dangerous where is my soul now why am I so unhappy then she introduced me to her body and I turned inside out upside down my bones stretched tight back breaking fever fire on fire on fire for you my little darling fever for you girl. Gone mad maybe, it happens to us all it’s only your body that’s dying. Fever. Fever. Fire. Walking around town oh they put me on cloud nine in the place where I was born where I drew my first breaths oh god they put me on cloud nine here take away my fears make me smile despite myself thank you for loving me thank you for saving me thank you thank you that was too much that was so real thank you for bringing me back to life love laughter where would I be without you hell or somewhere all that was too much you have revived me thank you thank you. They call this place a hospital! It’s filthy! There’s fag ash everywhere diseases love this place they thrive here this place is filthy this is no hospital! This place is like some mad opium den full of diseases and vileness and insanity this is no hospital! The young women are preyed upon by the nurses and the male patients alike here the young guys get lectured here by the Christians and have to hold their own with older crazies chock full of violence and super strength that comes from a mind with no inhibitions where fighting is concerned everywhere here the threat of impending violence hangs in the air like an indoor riot might break out at any moment and this all the time twenty-four seven to coin a phrase. It’s quite worrying really. Go to a nightclub to meet people really with the best of intentions to go alone to a nightclub just to meet new people and party, really best of intentions but when you get there you

remember suddenly how very shy you get dumbstruck all night because you are so very shy you think why didn’t I remember that in the first place might have saved myself the bother and stayed at home. Oh yes go to a nightclub on your own just to sit alone all night crippled with shyness whilst everyone else is partying laughing because they came here with people they already know, stupid! So very shy dig a big hole for myself die and throw myself in it must remember always that if I go to a nightclub well only when I will know at least five people who will be there otherwise it’s just a ridiculous waste of time energy money everything. And that’s when I got up to dance, enough said about that I feel but honestly it’s no wonder I always danced not that it helped as regards others you understand just that it helped to pass the time spent alone and crippled with shyness and inhibitions. Oh no, what am I doing here? Enjoy the next few moments, the lynching is booked for this afternoon. Shall we do it again her body said, might as well we spent all last night doing it, then I’d best be going I think, by the way, is your father a violent man? Don’t answer that. That terrible feeling oh lord I don’t really belong in a bed like this, oops! Right let’s finish up then I’d really better gather my things and get going. I believe in preserving all life, especially my own. Have a nice day! Oh no! Finish up, best be going. No need for talking, look, please always remember my name is John, John, always remember that name, John… And always remember how very SMALL I am, and fair, blonde, really BLODE, BLODE, and muscular, really muscular, always remember that, bye then, have a nice time! And then twenty years later you still can’t stop thinking about her and what might have been, what you could have even now both of you the one girl that really got to me, you know, she really got to me. Meet her now, love and romance, love and romance, married, everything, yes she really really got to me can’t stop thinking about her, never mind her, tenderness, she was really beautiful and had an amazing personality a wicked sense of humour, wicked figure, yes it’s true, it’s really true she really got to me. And if you are reading this, look me up, only you, the only one who ever got to me, look me up? My life is to strange, I am incurably ill. I’ve seen things you people would never believe as the saying goes. So next time you walk

down your suburban street living your suburban life think of me and know that there is a whole other life other existence beneath the shallowness and plasticity and rules and regulations. An underbelly a whole other realm just below the veneer of respectability it’s not about the golf club mate it’s not about the appearance of everything, dig a little deeper and you will find a middle earth populated by other-worldly revolutionary spirits. Not clones, not walking in step but real, warm, making mistakes achieving greatness, alive, alive, the ones who sleep and the ones who wake. Ours is not sycophancy towards the boss. Ours is not keeping up with the Joneses. Ours is not the mortgage the loveless marriage the monotonous unstimulating job. Our is the living, the warmth, the life, the love, the breaking free the ignoring all those bores, the adventure, the mysteries, the shape of things, the heart that beats, the warmth and the cold, we don’t do what we are told, we are not going to war because we are not marching in step. So keep your smart but casual fashions keep your worries of what everyone will think bury your parents’ dreams that you would keep your head down at all costs and never really live, because we suffered, we achieved ecstasy, we knew life and death. We knew pain, we knew joy and through all those pains always the knowledge that it’s all good because despite everything and everyone we are alive… even if we are a bit confused. Night jazz black leather chrome song. Summer night chanting chanting moonlight moon vibe people calling me over, over there. Speaking the word experience, in a deep voice, having seen so much more.