Mirror

Remember the days when we gazed
at those white light lockers in ‘dam,
that were talking?
 
Remember the nights of red lights
when we gazed in amaze at the boxes,
that were smiling
and shining...and pining?
 
We should have plucked the courage to fuck
to swallow our pride, let out the rage inside
and been alone with our opposites
 
Instead we mocked the Japanese flock
and laughed in tune with a photographer’s zoom
and a careless woman a-chasing...
 
 
The Anne Frank low, the mushroom glow,
the chess games played, the Doctorates obeyed,
the rainbow hat gifted by my friend,
stomach puffed up, hunger never to end,
and the time we were scared by a black man.
 
A bike trip of pity to a windmilled sea
tulips clogging up the smoke we breathed –
and this was preparation for my Finals!
 
And when we left, at the border i did jest
and, for the first time, displeased the Patrollers
With a stash of white trash gash
and a lung full of durum and green scum
the shores we crossed,
and our waves were parted.
 
A punch-up never came, but i went insane
and you digged deep with your chemistry.
We role-played Teach, paedophilia in reach
but i saw authority as no remedy.
 
And so we drifted along, the smoke-screen long gone
i travelled and you climbed the ladder.
Our chats no more, i did sleep with a whore
and you became like your father, and mother.
 
So when the crunch came, you played the game
and you had no heart to save me.
I put you in a spot, you let me rot
and so my anger at me turned against you.
 
For you   were what i was, and didn’t want to be
we shared the way, til the Damning of The See
It shut me down, to set me free
and now maybe you, want to be like me?
 
Remember the days when we uniformed our minds
those number lessons, counting time
and how you Page 3’d your way in class?
 
Remember the sweat of built up regret
as we were teased, tested and tortured
bullied into Options of Order?
 
Monitored and praised, for being well-behaved
bowing our heads, as we prayed and enslaved
the Future to the Masons.
 
Lodged and loaded, shunned and goaded
you were rowed and i was squashed
We graded stars, but only saw our feet
we dribbled come, because we were meek
trained people-pleasers.
 
 
You celebrate those irksome years,
I respond with jeers,
and attribute to them all my fears...
but at least we’re not queers!
But we are prejudiced, you more than me
but that’s the price you pay, for paying to be
educated         to believe
in the word of Man, the stories of Jesus,
and the Fear of God
the right to claim fame, and inflict pain
to label insane
because you are ‘intelligent’.
 
I am not intelligent
You consider yourself to be...
 
A truce, a truce, a Truth:
 
blood-brothers don’t need
to bleed.