The Time We Met
Coming from where we came,
We’d seen a thing or two,
Could give a thing its name.
We’d grown in field and town,
Semi detached from the playgrounds
Through which our playdough
personalities
Had so far been squeezed.
We had survived the barbs of
adolescence,
Would tease out the thorns.
We were exuberant.
With spliffs and student bank
accounts to burn,
We set out, twenty strong,
Rambled down florescent streets,
Reorganising traffic cones and road
signs.
We marvelled at sound reflected on a
domed pub ceiling,
Catching snippets of other people’s
conversation,
We drank to our omnipotence,
And deftly ignored our ignorance.
We’d learnt new words and wanted to
use them,
Like teleological, spectrographic,
djuvet and blup.
We dragged ourselves, bleary eyed to
seminar and lecture,
We quoted, extrapolated, deduced and conversed,
We spoke with authority on subjects
diverse,
Over “ities” and “isms” we’d argue
and curse,
Hated to back down and exchanged
harsh words,
That were soon forgotten
Amid the hangovers we’d nurse.
We gleefully jumped into one
another’s skins,
And bounded to music recently made
our own.
We watched new favourite films.
Scoured art for significance.
Ate and learnt how to cook,
Cue Andy he wrote us the book.
We swapped clothes and opinions,
And borrowing authors,
We frantically tattooed ourselves,
with each other’s passions.
We binged on naivety,
Said things that might now make us
cringe,
But we were open,
And listened to life stories with
earnest ears
Identifying and truth defying,
We stacked experiences with our own,
Played Jenga in the kitchen sink,
And laughed with delight,
To toss a coin into an unguarded
drink.
We were maturing fast;
Half obeyed cleaning rotas,
And realised all the lies they told
us at school.
We dropped childish prejudice;
Talked to strangers, read newspapers,
accepted vegetables,
And felt pretty grown up about it.
We paid bills and insulted landlords,
Destroyed the house, but cleaned up
afterwards.
We heard the thundering hooves of
deadlines,
And ate biscuits.
Got jobs to pay for taste the
difference.
We approached problems with reason
and clarity -
How to hide a stain, get an
extension,
How to film the girls and their girls
only party.
Awoke from a long night,
To find we’d borrowed a board room
door.
Scratched our heads, fashioned a
table
And played ping pong forevermore.
In quiet moments, we looked back to
where we started.
Had charged blindly down roads now
clearly marked.
To arrive here. With coins tossed and
decisions near,
We thought of our futures and flipped
between ideas.
Paths branching out to potential
failure,
If we walked up one could we walk up
another?
The old adage guided those who knew
it -
You can do most anything, if you put
your mind to it.
Only first you had to work out what
to do,
Who to be and how to go about your
business.
From one another we got different
views,
Got courage, love, trust and
forgiveness.
Got calm words when we couldn’t think
straight,
Leant on each other and saw the marks
we make.
Felt hands on shoulders,
Over which we watched as we painted
each other’s portraits.
Watched them grow and shimmer,
As we proudly hung them by our
mirrors.
