The world is so much wider / deeper / broader than we are led to believe. We are encouraged to throw our shackles off and explore Europe at 18 as if it’s some great, nay, grand, adventure, but it is merely a constructed reality - a structured escape preventing us from truly escaping. 

We blow off all our steam in cheap bars and dingy hostels, collecting war stories about stolen wallets and all-night trains - but what have we really seen? Ticked boxes in guidebooks, filled SD cards with ‘memories’. The year abroad is no longer stretching the minds of the elastic - rather it’s forming them all the same. We now all fit the one mould. And, the scary thing is? We all think we’ve broken it.

I still think about you from time to time

when the air is still and the music washes in and over me.

There’s a peaceful clarity there, I hope you know.

At 3am, I woke up in such a rage. Scrawling infinities across the page

I am angry. I am angry.

I said all my goodbyes that night. Etched into blue lines, etched into white.

I am angry. I am sad.

I wrote goodbye to your mother. That beautiful mother who rose such a goddamn beautiful son.

I am angry. I am tired.

I fell back into restlessness. I dreamt only of my anger / of her face / of your back.

I am tired. I am tired.

Walking away. Walking away.

He had been forever transient.

Walking silently through crowds of people,

lighting sparks and leaving only

fleeting marks…

A fragmented reflection in the eyes

of those looking on,

seeing only arbitrary angles of the whole.

And as he passed on by

he collected all the mirrored reflections

from those that had gone before,

putting the brightest flames away

for the darkest of times.

Each face in the crowd had left its mark,

and on each face he had been

only a fleeting remark. 

Download Green & Gold 4 here.

I met an old man on the street today. He bowed his head and dipped his hat and said, “Honey, we all have our own prerogatives. Mine’s avoiding my ex-wife until the end of time.”

Download the latest G&G here.