Strawberry_lovemuffin
Bluelighter
I wrote this as a eulogy for my cousin's funeral. He was 26 when he died of a heroin overdose; I was his awestruck 24 year old fan and eternally willing scapegoat/alibi - right from when we were very young to when we lost touch a couple of years before his death. I don't know that I ever really knew him in the later years but the impact he had on my childhood was, is, indescribable.
Later this turned into a feature article which was published in Better Health magazine, with a slant towards bipolar/drug addiction.
Jeremy's Wonderland
A lifetime ago you held my hand
To help me up to the highest branch
in the treehouse. I was
Shaking more than the leaves with fear
But tried not to show you
Pretended I was happy to stay where I was.
But you saw through that....
You made me do it.
And once I was up there I saw what you meant.
Perched like sparrows; bandaids on our knees,
the wind in our hair
And the world at our feet.
It was life.... but from a different angle.
I remember a sea of plastic picnic plates
Presents, and family chit-chat
And you, across the barbecue sauce
Desperately waiting to catch my eye.
"C'mon!" you'd whisper, and we'd disappear
Every year.
Mischevious plans hatched in your mind
Like bright tiny spiders
And always those eyes, that smile,
Illuminated the greyest day.
Where there was a wall, you'd climb it
A window, you'd open it
A puddle, you'd step in it
We were sometimes lost,
Often caught;
But never bored.
Later, when we both grew up
It was a different playground.
You played me Pet Shop Boys, and
helped me choose jeans.
And when you introduced me to your friends
I thought my heart would burst.
I was intoxicated by you.
Like Alice in Jeremy's Wonderland
Trips to that world were magical.
And though I didn't go there much in the
last few years, the feelings remain.
How privilaged I was to have shared a part of it.
To have walked in those colours
To have seen from the top branches
And perched on forbidden walls
with the courage of angels.
Because that's where the real living begins...
You knew that.
I loved you then, I love you still,
Jeremy -
My magician, my cousin,
My hero, my friend.
Later this turned into a feature article which was published in Better Health magazine, with a slant towards bipolar/drug addiction.
Jeremy's Wonderland
A lifetime ago you held my hand
To help me up to the highest branch
in the treehouse. I was
Shaking more than the leaves with fear
But tried not to show you
Pretended I was happy to stay where I was.
But you saw through that....
You made me do it.
And once I was up there I saw what you meant.
Perched like sparrows; bandaids on our knees,
the wind in our hair
And the world at our feet.
It was life.... but from a different angle.
I remember a sea of plastic picnic plates
Presents, and family chit-chat
And you, across the barbecue sauce
Desperately waiting to catch my eye.
"C'mon!" you'd whisper, and we'd disappear
Every year.
Mischevious plans hatched in your mind
Like bright tiny spiders
And always those eyes, that smile,
Illuminated the greyest day.
Where there was a wall, you'd climb it
A window, you'd open it
A puddle, you'd step in it
We were sometimes lost,
Often caught;
But never bored.
Later, when we both grew up
It was a different playground.
You played me Pet Shop Boys, and
helped me choose jeans.
And when you introduced me to your friends
I thought my heart would burst.
I was intoxicated by you.
Like Alice in Jeremy's Wonderland
Trips to that world were magical.
And though I didn't go there much in the
last few years, the feelings remain.
How privilaged I was to have shared a part of it.
To have walked in those colours
To have seen from the top branches
And perched on forbidden walls
with the courage of angels.
Because that's where the real living begins...
You knew that.
I loved you then, I love you still,
Jeremy -
My magician, my cousin,
My hero, my friend.
