pk.
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2011
- Messages
- 1,833
"Land ahoy!", you screamed,
In your worst pirate imitation
And suddenly the dark sapphire
Water became jade.
It was rather odd,
I thought,
That we hadn't
Met again prior to this day.
Back then, you left school
Rather hastily
And spent your seasons
At university
Studying Egyptology,
While I,
Recently divorced,
Moved about, place to place
Engaging in a string of
Unhealthy relationships
With horrible bitter women.
During all of this, I
Somehow managed to obtain
Work at a local public library,
Arranging and recommending
Books for people,
Slowly accumulating
Some scrap of income
And occupational pride.
I remember one bitterly cold evening
On your inner-city balcony,
Wrestling with the wind
To light a cigarette,
You had just returned from Dubai
Selling watches to the
Extremely affluent.
You crossed so much land and ocean
In those days, a real modern
Business-explorer,
And it suddenly dawned on me
That my youthful existence
Was being wasted sitting,
Compressed between bookshelves
Choking on dust and silence.
I tried thinking back
To our early life,
Trying to find where
That fork in the
Educational road
Left us on very
Different journeys
In society,
And how far we had come,
And strayed,
From what we had planned.
We sat now,
At a rickety table
With two stale cups of coffee
And a basket of croissants
Within the walls of a
Dilapidated mint-coloured
Apartment block,
A local cafe.
The sun was still
Half-way to noon.
You pointed to
Your mansion sitting
Atop a pale-pink cliff-face;
It looked like a
Wonderful, large bedsheet,
From across the bay,
Stretching over an
Emerald-coloured jungle.
I somehow
Always knew,
Though,
That beneath
The external decoration
Of ourselves,
That we were always
The same people,
The same kids back
Breaking open
Shops and stealing cigarettes.
Only now,
Our desires even
Larger and more extravagant,
With much tougher penalties.
Just two kids, playing adult dress-up
In this earthly playground.
In your worst pirate imitation
And suddenly the dark sapphire
Water became jade.
It was rather odd,
I thought,
That we hadn't
Met again prior to this day.
Back then, you left school
Rather hastily
And spent your seasons
At university
Studying Egyptology,
While I,
Recently divorced,
Moved about, place to place
Engaging in a string of
Unhealthy relationships
With horrible bitter women.
During all of this, I
Somehow managed to obtain
Work at a local public library,
Arranging and recommending
Books for people,
Slowly accumulating
Some scrap of income
And occupational pride.
I remember one bitterly cold evening
On your inner-city balcony,
Wrestling with the wind
To light a cigarette,
You had just returned from Dubai
Selling watches to the
Extremely affluent.
You crossed so much land and ocean
In those days, a real modern
Business-explorer,
And it suddenly dawned on me
That my youthful existence
Was being wasted sitting,
Compressed between bookshelves
Choking on dust and silence.
I tried thinking back
To our early life,
Trying to find where
That fork in the
Educational road
Left us on very
Different journeys
In society,
And how far we had come,
And strayed,
From what we had planned.
We sat now,
At a rickety table
With two stale cups of coffee
And a basket of croissants
Within the walls of a
Dilapidated mint-coloured
Apartment block,
A local cafe.
The sun was still
Half-way to noon.
You pointed to
Your mansion sitting
Atop a pale-pink cliff-face;
It looked like a
Wonderful, large bedsheet,
From across the bay,
Stretching over an
Emerald-coloured jungle.
I somehow
Always knew,
Though,
That beneath
The external decoration
Of ourselves,
That we were always
The same people,
The same kids back
Breaking open
Shops and stealing cigarettes.
Only now,
Our desires even
Larger and more extravagant,
With much tougher penalties.
Just two kids, playing adult dress-up
In this earthly playground.
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