This page is dedicated to the notes I make while writing. I have decided to share those little moments because their highlights illuminate what the fuck I’m talking about. I think a lot of the time what I’m aiming for I launch towards in an odd way, so I’d like to add some explanation.

Seventeen

Seventeen is a nod to the drug life and abuse I embraced at…seventeen. It’s a sort of hug to the person I was then, terribly confused and terrifically brave. Again, I feel like I’m trying to explain something that nobody is asking about, so I guess it’s for myself – I’m trying to give myself an offer into why. As I grow older and wiser I miss who I used to be but I also really pity him for what I inevitably put him through.

I left a lot of nights to blue
Exactly what happened, I’ve never had a clue
See,
Nobody ever really cared about me
Despite how far I went, how dangerously
Into the streets
Myself and me

Blue is a colour I tend to associate with my past. When I am, I am referencing a blue pastel that’s soft and dizzy like chalk because it reminds me of fog, which is where I spent most of my days particularly at this age. 

It’s known that people who don’t feel cared about or watched tend to become rebellious albeit for attention to sort of test the waters on your relationships which is pretty toxic but it’s definitely an area I frequented. By ‘Myself and me’ I’m referencing self-duality – as I go further into this song this becomes more apparent but essentially a lot of the time I felt my only companion was myself – something I sort of forced out of me so I wouldn’t feel so alone, so it all wouldn’t be so scary.

And all along the roads I never believed in
I came across some nodes, their tips beating
A gang of them, didn’t know their names or meanings
But still said I’d go to lose the evening
Closed all the doors

This is in lieu of those many strangers I attached myself to, a sort of anonymity that we offered one another where I could lie to them about who I was or where I was going and it is also a nod to my natural charisma and allure that I can and still to this day do befriend easily. ‘Closed all the doors’ is a faint memory of mine I have while on pills where a guy I didn’t really know named Steven took us back to his and while high he frantically kept closing all the doors ensuring we were locked into this sitting room area which I also remember in a pastel blue flavour. I remember not feeling trapped but feeling rounded. 

My pupils wide,
Top me up all night
And would you believe?
I’m only seventeen

We went skipping on train tracks, my nameless friends that
Gave me my youth by removing the child from me

I also have a memory perhaps when I was older than seventeen though, of when I went walking on train tracks with two girls who I again, didn’t really know but it is a fond memory of mine.

From all of this I had a contrasting feeling of being both young and wild but older and pained – the inner child I cling onto so tightly is a child, early teenage years and this is when my life pivoted towards disaster which traumatised me, and I’ve never felt further than him than I did when I was with them, because it was the opposite of who I would ever have intended to be. But I still felt like I was heading on a path that was inevitable, with drugs and alcohol and abuse also claiming the children I grew up with, though I had detached myself from them for the same reason. 

See,
Nobody ever really listened to me
So I sinned and snuggled into an inner duality
Became two different boys, just for the company
To contrast my crooked reality

This is an expansion on why I feel like I adapted into a duality, I do think it was a loneliness case, or perhaps a case where I needed to jump from one form to another so I didn’t have to sit with everything that had been done to me and what I had become. It was a distraction, a welcome one. 

All along those roads, he was all I had to know, to believe in
I came across no more than what he was thinking
He countered all of my hopes, so we could pretend we’re dreaming
Went up and low, just to feel it
Closed all the doors

It’s no secret that I am always in a state of confliction – I forgive people easily but struggle to trust, I never really understand my emotions and I find it hard to respond sometimes simply because I am usually confused. My dreams at the time were dreams to become a successful writer, and I had aspirations within philanthropy too. I am also definitely a hopeless romantic I’ve been in love once and for years and even until now I still wish and think of ways that we could be together but it is of course impossible with unreciprocated love. And I guess everything felt unreciprocated, sometimes I feel like I’m bouncing my soul off a wall just for it to come back to me and I think I needed that confliction to tell me to grow from the experience and to not hold out waiting for things and dreams that were never meant for me. 

My pupils riot,
Pill poppin’ high
Would you believe?
I’m only seventeen

Seventeen

He says to me
“You’re the greatest you’ll ever be, at seventeen”
His hands are on me,
Because I’m only seventeen
Is it life or a dream?
I’m only seventeen

This is a line from a man who was lashing himself on me when I was seventeen – I remember telling him that I was inexperienced (not completely) and shy in the bedroom because of that, but also conscious of my body because I was so skinny and he, a lot older told me that I’m the best I’ll ever be and that seventeen is a peak year. This rattled me a little because I knew he was manipulating me but I could also sense he meant those words as they were touched with grief. And I remember then his hands gripping my thighs while he kissed me and I almost felt he wanted to take my age from me with jealousy. We spent that night together and I never heard from again and I felt stolen, but not for the first time and definitely not the last. I knew he was manipulating me, but it wasn’t until I was older that I realised what grooming was and what he had effectively done, and yes I do believe there are consequences and impacts of even this on young adults especially gay men who are given the lethal stereotype of being pedophiles or sex pests. Then this stuff happens to us and we are torn between never wanting to talk about because we would feed that false representation but not wanting it to continue or happen to anybody else – it’s a heavy burden. 

The final line is a realisation aspect that I add as twenty-four year old – I was only seventeen and in way over my head. I do need to see myself as a victim to not only life and the people in it but also to myself, my own workings and dealings but to forgive myself where I was young and silly and to remind me that we are all products of our surroundings. I brought myself to some dark places but that’s okay because I bring myself to other places now, and I can do my best to ensure I am bringing others to bright places too.

I’m only seventeen

Viper Teeth

Viper teeth is ultimately about the dangers of alcoholism, The viper, and suckling its teat is a metaphor that represents how dangerous playing with the boundaries of alcoholism is, the snake representing addiction and abuse. 
However, as the short poem continues the addiction and allure becomes quite prominent and finishes on why; ‘Bleaches my heart.’ This quote is showcases why the reach through the peril to grab the bottle. It ‘bleaches my heart’ – makes me feel numb to my feelings that I don’t want to feel. 

Christ

Christ is tying two abusers in my life together (One Christ – the representation of religion and the other an anonymous person). Together, these two figures have exemplified nothing but control and ‘rules’ for me to follow that I eventually break off from.

I’m thinking on it
I’m tripping on it
I’m tricking on it
Thinking on it
Tripping on it
Tricking on it

Fascination with it (Think)
Destabilisation from it (Trip)
Mastering it (Trick)

Smaller, smaller
Altar, altar

Altar, before the altar, our design to make us smaller, smaller
Built the state for the “author”, to build him taller
To Crush

Here I am referencing many sociological and philosophical ‘wake ups’ in regards to religion. The concept that we as humans built God and built christianity only to enslave ourselves to it.

Christ,
Made from stick and brim we made you for order, order
You’re nailed to a cross father, your honour, my proper
Unfit for slaughter

Here, I am challenging what ‘Jesus’ is made of – as most modern forms of him are wooden remakes of crucifixes with him nailed onto them, and that’s all he is to me. And yet I am supposed to pray to this piece of oak tree? Lol imagine

Christ, (Low Passive Aggressive Drone)
I could have kept on winning, like a sinner to the minute just
Right (Had my intuition and connections not been interrupted by religious ‘guidelines’ and also by the anonymous subject forcible interference within my life, I would have been better off. Both of these tried to shape who I was and who I should be).
Should I have left it thinning? Or hit it ’till it’s missing? (This is in regards to my fading faith in both Religion and the relationship I shared with the anon, should I have escalated it’s erosion or sat and waited for the gap to wedge? Either way, it would end in their failure.)
Was I a slave to the trimmed limit or an edge for the system a precautionary allegiance are you secure in your shiftings what are
MINE (What am I in the game of life? This highlights my feelings of being nothing but a conduit or a catalyst – living and breathing off the reactions of others, as opposed to living for and because of myself.)

Christ,
What do you want from me?
Another song to sing?
Another wrong to bring in?
Christ
No holds barred I see
Scathing me relentlessly
Gunnin’ for a change to take me
Out

This is me talking to both figures of anguish and wondering why they treat me so terribly. What is the end product – if destiny and fate are real, as both teach they are but in different ways (we were made to be together forever // you were made by me and you should worship and pray to me as I will be your ultimate judgement) then what is the purpose of me suffering these two? 

Mmph,
Think, trip, trick you’re a good liar but by far not the best
Let it be known, there is nothing else, I only miss the dead

This is directly targeted at the anon, how I don’t miss him at all, even though he will try to tell me I do. The first line as an ego-punch to both figures as not being believable enough to successfully manipulate me – it is me putting myself above their falsities and saying “I see through you.”

Christ,
I left it sifting, it was poison in the rifting’s
Knife This is a direct response to ‘should I have left it thinning?’ The end was inevitable and my choice was to be patient and to be smart and collect all of my bearing in the process.
Did I offer my submission? Had I bowed to the religion? Did I set myself up to being allowed to be controlled?
A mere murder of the mimic play-dead, play hurt, play pain are you sound in your exhibit are you happy with your feeding lies and your delusion of a victim both religion and the anon have vouched and voiced that they are the ones in need of saving and yet they are the ones who want to ensure their rules are followed – they are not the victim to themselves – I am have you tamed your resistance have you accepted that you are not in control of others people’s lives and have you finally stopped trying to get them anyways is your heresy independent on the birth of sacreligion is your independent structure which is clearly in lacking depending on a guideline for you to follow? Will you only begin to question after the question has been asked? This is about me and learning to realise that I should be longer to trust scribing the inscription from the blood of your subjacents the marks and who have made him are deplorably heathen the abhorrent treatment of both figures to their ‘followers’
Mmph

Christ,
What do you want from me?
Another song to sing?
Another wrong to bring in?
Christ
No holds barred I see
Scathing me relentlessly
Gunnin’ for a change to take me
Out

A mans strength is like a bullet – it’s all down to the number of them
But isolation does not ice-cement abuse
Utilisation of the minimisation is your own way out

I relate a man to a bullet because both are lethal however both are flawed, and the less of them the more safe I have felt. However, being alone in the presence of one does not mean you are automatically safe just because you statistics of being harmed are lower. Minimisation is an art of deception that is using your reduction (as brought on by both domineering figures) and allowing them to believe they are right in their dehumanisation of you and their belittling you to the point where they don’t feel the need to constantly remind you or put you ‘in your place’ because as far as they are concerned, you know you belong there and you wont stray from that – is a method of manipulating the manipulators and can be used to your freedom. That’s what worked for me. Let them think they have control and that they don’t need to aggressively force it, that way their hands begin to ease up and you can slip out.

And we can keep god dead and we can be godless
We will feel heaven sent and free we will be lawless
We will never again belong to a man – our emancipation is our solace

This final section is about never letting anything or anyone dictate me ever again. I use ‘We’ because I know I am not alone in how I have been treated. ‘We can be godless’ refers to us being able to do anything we want – because in life, truthfully you can. You can do anything you want – fear of god’s judgement and punishment is only a fear and fear can be beaten and overthrown. Once it is you become limitless. (I still have morals I’m not going to murder anybody – but my point is that the chains don’t hold me back anymore and the shackles are broken. I can be whoever I want to be, with whoever I want to be, and only know can I see the true extent of how limited my life had been under their control).