clinging to the wreckage

The healing powers of music are immeasurably powerful. I awoke this morning, hungover, depressed, remembering critical and negative words from the night before and feeling the sting from their fresh cuts. Now I am lying in bed listening to No Use For a Name and I feel lifted, happy and strong. The joy of music stems from our ability to connect to it and relate to it on some level. For me, the most important aspect of music has always been the lyrics. Hence why I love the likes of Morrissey, Bad Religion, John K Samson and The Weakerthans, John Moreland, Blake Schwarzenbach, Tony Sly and so on and so forth. Many of these bands and others, like The Clash, have been with me throughout my life and shall remain. Fortified by music, the day ahead now seems manageable. sleeping in  

The suffocating darkness returned. Everything had passed and all that was left was stress, anxiety and fear. The pressure of study and musical creativity was replaced with the daily pressure of office life, and social occupation was replaced by an empty room filled with nothing but books and haunted by memories of  loves long lost. There were breakfast ghosts, dinner ghosts, lover ghosts and those that laughed and puffed clouds of smoke out of the window at the far end of the living room. It was empty and meaningless. In spite of the invites and the utterances of 'we have lots of time', Madrid life was in fact over and the remaining days were dwindling like the flames of an abandoned fire. Two more months would mean that Europe was no longer home and a new life would begin across the Atlantic Ocean. Loneliness and inaction awaited. It was uncertain if this was good or bad because life in Madrid had become a blur of non-reality. America would be a grounding, an opportunity to ge

I awoke in the middle of the night, alone in that Boston hotel, and reached out for my phone to try to determine the time. My little finger struck the hotel room phone and it automatically started to dial reception on speaker. I leaped up and tried to end the call but it was too late, they answered before I could hang up. ‘I am sorry, I accidentally dialled.’ It was 4am, I was awake for the day. Fortunately, unlike yesterday, I had coffee cups this morning and was therefore able to make a cup of coffee. The morning before I’d had to go walking around the hotel in my pyjamas until I found a very helpful Mexican lady… I asked her for coffee cups in Spanish and she gave me 14. I suppose a British guy speaking Spanish in a hotel in the USA is not a very common event.             In the centre of Boston an Irish man hands me English Ale brewed with American ingredients and talks to me about football (European football). I get drunk, hand him many notes and leave. In the park I ca

I once knew a woman who was obsessed with things like men not believing women, men not trusting women, and so on. This woman lived with her husband but they were separated. She was seeing other men but lived with her husband because she didn’t work and had no other form of support. She said she couldn’t work because she had too many health issues… she was always seriously, critically ill. Always messaging to say that she had come close to death, she was in hospital, they didn’t know if she’d pull through. I always wondered how she managed to send such long, detailed messages from her deathbed whilst in a life threatening coma. Even more strange than this was the fact that she somehow would make it out of the hospital during the evenings and go drinking with her friends and would post photos on Facebook of herself holding a glass of wine and laughing in the street as she lifted her skirt to show her underwear. Then, the next day, the poor thing, she was back on her deathbed, ha

Four or more days off and then the clocks change, the sun disappears, and Monday morning punches us in the face like an angry friend we once turned to for love and understanding. Hope is vanquished and every deadline is beyond urgent. It seems we are stranded in the place where Christ once lost his sandals.  A love letter, written to a lost lover, that was never sent, lies yellowing in the dust upon a dirty floor. You lie down, wondering why certain feelings that should be long since dead never relent. Finally you reach out and send text messages to someone who never responds. Unrequited love and a desire are not reciprocal.

An abstract silence thundered through the night into which she had disappeared. Like flashes of lightning she would appear and then, along with the storm, she’d be gone. Tempestuous was her beauty but her elegance and grace was like the calm before the storm. The personification of calm is what she was. Pale skin veiled in a robe of black hair and piercing bright eyes that seemed to venture deep into one’s mind and read every thought that lay inside, revealing every little lie and unravelling it. The eyes said ‘you do not need to speak for I know everything.’ From joyous and enthusiastic interaction to complete and utter stony silence. Excited interest turned to vitriolic violent hatred. There is no explanation. Formidable. I long for you.

March 4, 2016 Sitting in the living room of my parent’s house on the South African coast I received an e-mail from the University. I assumed it was one of the standard mails that arrives from them from time to time such as a newsletter or miscellaneous information but I opened it instantly anyway, just in case it was the result of my Master’s degree. The mail read ‘your result is currently being transferred to the student homepage and should be available shortly.’ I slowly opened the Student Homepage with palpitating heart, convinced I had failed, trying to decide if I should tell anyone. Upon arrival on the student homepage I saw the word ‘PASS’ and a smile formed on my face that I was unable to remove for quite some time. I ran to tell my mother and the sounds she made caused my dad to run into the room to ask what was wrong. It was a great moment that was perfectly timed and I am so utterly relieved to have passed. These things fade away in time but