Garbage Cans and Flower Children

I have been walking around in a turquoise and amber mist, a surreal tryst at best. To find myself trudging through clouds with a needle and thread in my hand striving to sew my person in a canvas, already complete. Trying to find myself in a lens carved in crystal.
If there were a way for me to go back and intertwine my person and perception through a map, I would stitch my soul into a song. I would set sail to ‘Suzanne’, begging her to take me down to the place by the river where I could see the boats go by and spend the night forever. Because I know that she’s half crazy and that’s the only reason I’d want to be there. I may not be big on tea and oranges all the way from China, but I’m big on crazy kind.

And I want to travel blind…


I

And you want to travel with her and you want to travel blind
You think you maybe trust her because she’s touched you
And she’s moved you
And she’s kind

Her eyes and ears were always open. Alert, attentive and apprehensive were the tools and survival the game. She rolled the dice a long time ago and just kept on rolling. A Gambler’s recourse if there ever was one.
They say crossroads only cross our paths once in a while. It isn’t often that we find ourselves at a major bridge - a choice that changes a life, or is it that we forget the bridges once we’ve burnt them?
“Who will it be sweetheart? You don’t have to be scared, just whisper it in my ear. No one will say anything, no one will hurt you. Just tell me, do you want to go home with Mom or Baba?” It is an odd thing standing in the middle of a court room trying to pick a parent when you’re eight years old. She felt that it was odd, it was odd wasn’t it….this couldn’t be normal? The judge seemed kind, so maybe the truth was the order of the day…
“Mom.”
She never figured out if it was the right choice.


II

He himself was broken long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a star

Her heart and head were always closed. Only her will functioned, a steely resolve that was unbreakable to the point that it was unbridgeable. It is what happens when one loses the bet, but refuses to fold.
Bridge number two was easier, it just didn’t work. It was only her, the vanity mirror, three fresh zits and eight pills of Valium. Fourteen is a good age to go, if one can’t find a reason to stay. Its enough to say you’ve tried and not enough to hate yourself for trying too hard. It was perfect.
A failed attempt at a fable. Tragic endings are poignant because they move people – finally, the ultimate curtain call for the teenage drama queen that no one understood.
Only, it proved to be the dress rehearsal.


III

She’s wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters
And the Sun pours down like honey on our Lady of the Harbour
And she shows you where to look amongst the garbage and the flowers
There are Heroes in the seaweed there are Children in the Morning

She had a winning smile. It had been practiced, painted and choreographed to perfection. It was flawless, unfathomable and therefore unreal. It was nice to know that fooling people was easy. All it took was a flash of teeth and glint in ones eye. It’s a power rush like no other – A follower’s deflection and a fool‘s redemption.
It is harder to map out a pinnacle point when the time span is ten years, hard to pick the one moment where the smiles crystallise and lose all humanity. Impossible to identify the time and place where she first faked it. The first fake laugh, the first fake ‘I’m fine’, the first fake ‘Its okay’, the first fake ‘Don’t worry about me’, the first fake ‘I’m so happy’. She never tried to phase out the lies or the truths.
They were too mangled to be different.


IV

Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water
He spent a long time watching from a lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him
He said all men shall be sailors then until the sea shall free them

The first tears she remembered. They always came after the door closed on his way out. Her Demon was her inspiration. It was a release like no other, to have an excuse to cry, even if it was perpetrated by sheer terror. It was permissible because it was passing. It never happened outside the hailstorm, which is why both he and she could accept it. It was forgivable. It was the only human thing about her.
It was always her favourite part.


V

They’re leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the Mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel Blind…

Her crosses came in different sizes. They were all easy to bear, because they needed to be. Some were just more memorable than others. Ten years marked the end of the biggest cross. The cliff-hanger to crash all others. An actual choice.
“Its up to you, you will stay here and do what you’re told or you can get lost.”
There are seconds that one can count, they are few and far between, but they exist. They are the slit in time that they show in the movies, where you can hear your heart’s superimposed beat and count each breath and the space in between every flicker of your eye lash. It was the biggest hand he had ever dealt her…and he was bluffing.
And she called him on it.


The hardest time to move is when the cast comes off.

The hardest moment to be free is when the shackles have been broken.

The hardest time to love is when you are free to do so.

Hard times come and wait…till you are finally ready to go.