City Story

I step off the train and immediately I know where I am. This city was home to me, for a while, and in some ways it will probably always remain so. I walk down the stairs, into the station foyer, and straight outside. Around me, voices chatter in a foreign tongue, and it takes me a moment to start picking out what’s being said.

It’s late afternoon, around three o’clock, and it’s winter. There’s a chill in the air, but everything is crisp. The kind of day where there is no rain, no snow, just an ever present cold. Refreshing. I cross the road, dodging past the trams pulling in outside the station, and head towards the small park, through which, I remember, you can access the city centre.

The park is busy with people despite the time of year, and I walk past couples and families, heading for the city proper. Coming out of the other side of the park, I make my way through the familiar streets, streets I remember from long ago, but which somehow don’t seem the same now I walk them alone.

I pass a group of friends as I continue on my way – seven or eight of them, laughing and joking together; young, the age I was when I lived here with my friends – each one of them such a part of one another’s worlds. I hope to myself that they never lose each other. But a part of me knows that time will part them in the end.

Before I know it, I’m in the market square. There’s no market, so the space looks vast and empty. I’m pleased to see that the building works that had been happening last time I was here are finished, and the place has retained the olde worlde charm that had once made it one of my favourite places. I cross the square and take a seat at a table outside the café we used to come to every night.

At a table across from me, a young couple sit, wrapped up warm under the heat lamps, arms draped around one another, talking in the way you do when you’re talking to the only person in the world who matters to you. Their smiles light up the darkening afternoon. I look across the square to the clock – half an hour to go till 4 o’clock – there won’t be a lot of light left in this day.

The café is busy – but then it always was. Most of the tables are occupied with people, and as I wait for a waiter to take my order, I marvel at all the connections that exist between these people. Sometimes, I think that all the connections I’m ever going to experience have already happened – that somehow I’m no longer capable of connecting with anybody. Other times I wonder if I’ve ever really connected with anyone at all. I look again at the couple in love, but they don’t make me happy.

The waiter comes and takes my order. Hot lemon. One of my favourite drinks. I like how the bitter taste lays on my tongue, and the warmth it brings is something I need more than I can say. My drink arrives before long – I munch absently at the little biscuit on the side of the saucer, and sip my drink slowly, looking around me at all the chatting people, wondering how conversations start.

A young man walking past the café alone catches my eye. For a moment, I think he might be the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. But the moment passes, and he is gone.

I manage to catch the waiter’s eye, and pay for my drink. He seems friendly, so I leave a small tip, remembering the customs of this city, and I get up and walk away, the conversations in the café indistinguishable from the conversations in my memory, both bleeding into silence as I go.

Knowing I’ve not got much of the evening left, I decide to see the sunset from the highest place I can think of – this city, the place I loved so much, the place that holds so many memories for me, deserves to be seen in its entirety on a night like this. Besides, I’ve never seen it from on high at night time before, and I guess it will be beautiful.

I make my way through the streets, past groups of people who’ve stopped to watch a street entertainer juggling sticks on fire, groups of people all together. I wonder where all the other lonely people go. The people who couldn’t connect. Or just chose not to. Or did, but had their connections cut. Maybe I’m the only one. That would make sense.

I eventually find what I’m looking for. I’d got lost for a moment there among the crowds. The entrance to the tower. It’s a great, monolithic building which dominates the skyline of the city, and if you pay a small fee, you can stand in the open air on the top floor and look out across the city. This is how I want to see the sunset. I go inside, and press the button for the lift.

**********

I’m on top of the tower now, looking out across the city. I buy a coffee from the small stall, somewhat surprised to find it still open, though I suppose there’s demand for hot drinks on cold nights like this.

I can see for miles. As the sun goes down, lights begin to shine inside a million windows, and I think about all the lives being lived out there, under the glare of those lights. Lives lived alone, lives lived together. Some of the lights shine brighter than others. Around me, there are a few others enjoying the view. A young couple, maybe seventeen or eighteen, arm in arm, drinking hot chocolate from small plastic beakers.

“Look,” says the boy, pushing a strand of blonde hair away from his eyes, “over there, you can see our house.”
“Let’s go home,” she says, smiling at him. They disappear down the stairs.

There’s an old man here as well.

“I’ve lived in this city all my life,” he says, to nobody in particular, “and I still think it’s beautiful.”

I agree with him, and wonder if I should say so. It occurs to me that maybe the old man is talking to me. But I’m not really in the mood for conversation. I gulp down the rest of my coffee and head back down into the city, to see what I can find.

AB

For the Modern Age

If this is the modern age
And all the rage and hunger
To consume consumes you
Think of me.
I can't live for real
Cos I'm waiting for the bills to come in
And wondering where the money'll come from
To pay the price of peace.
And if this is my masterpiece,
It doesn't pay the bills
It just kills the pain for a while
Of having to smile and draw breath
Whilst counting down the days till death -
Like the morphene that she needed
As she was dying.
A part of me has never stopped crying.
So I'm no slave to rules of rhyme and rhythm
These poems are just my moments
I just live them.
If this is the modern age,
I do not want it.

To be with you

A dream, to be with you,
And lay all day
And say nothing
For there's nothing to be said.
Just in my head
The silent time,
When I'm alone but dream I'm not.

For my pen

Dear pen
Become my friend again
And help me spill my soul out on these pages
It's been a while
The longest mile
I've not put pen to paper now in ages.

I write now for a different world
Lament a life long gone
But pen, you're with me still,
And maybe there's still time to do
What must be done.

Dear pen
Become my friend again
It's like you never went
So I'll lament
The money I have spent
The path of life, so bent
And crooked now
I round the bend
I make it to the other end
And I'm still here, still writing, still somehow...

I never lost my voice
I just stayed silent through choice
But now I need you, pen, to face the world.

Dear pen
Become my friend again
And let these words be read aloud
And heard.