I write songs when I’m sad. Scribble lyrics in my diaries and pluck out tunes in my ukelele or guitar. I think some of them are quite good, if a little sad.
Not that I’ll ever show them to you of course. I don’t mind bearing my heart on the internet, but adding music to my soul-shares? That’s too much, man… Whilst wondering about the ways to say goodbye to London, I settled upon looking through several notebooks I filled whilst sat on my bed last year with a full heart and drained soul. As I prepare for my move to Tokyo in one week (!?) I wanted to write something encapsulating the absolute trial by fire that London life has been for me.
The Romantics wrote many a poem about the ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ one becomes twisted within when in a relationship with this city. My friend Roisin described London as akin to a ‘creature’, an entity unto itself. Though I love this creature in many ways, I do not think it is one I can live with, and so therefore I must depart.
But in many ways it is only through living in this city that I have come to know and love myself as a young woman. I leave far more confident, capable, and self-assured than I thought possible after just two years. I see this change when re-reading those aforementioned notebooks, and can’t help but imagine what new creatures await in Tokyo.
Whatever happens, I feel so totally ready.
Which is a really wonderful feeling.
So, to close this chapter and begin another I wrote you a poem inspired by these notebook entries (and a few Phoebe Bridgers' references), soon to be shipped out back to Wales before I start writing brand new reams halfway across the world. So here they are, some lessons from a twenty-something living in London, now leaving for better times:
I fell in love with a guy, with a ghost,
Got caught up on a boy
Who said that he liked my -
I said they look better at night,
I can shine
And I’ll light up your skies
If that’s what you want me to do.
I wished on you.
Fell for you.
Loved you too.
Then it all went blue.
Blue like this city,
Blue like these nights.
Blue like my mind when I turn out the lights.
And the hours of worries I spun in my head,
Cacooned into coverlets, duvet-ed in dread.
Spider-silk stress reading texts in my bed.
The circle goes blue,
A message from you
I’m caught up and loved up
Alone in a stew
And your words come so quickly,
What else can I do
But give up my daydreams to you?
But then the ticks go dark.
This feeling starts
of feeling like I’m nothing.
Like intensity’s a part of me
That means I’ll never work.
And so I try
But I can’t lie that it feels good to feel like nothing,
Because at least then I feel something.
I need something
And I’m like ‘ugh, not this again’.
So I’ll pick up the pieces.
I’ll mesh and I’ll mend.
I’ll pack up my bags and say bye to my friends.
And I’ll laugh and I’ll cry
I’ll get drunk on goodbyes
Farewell bitterness, glitter alone in the skies.
Paint the edges with gold.
Guild the guilt, smooth the lines.
Glue the cracks and come back as
Completely Divine.
As I leave, I won’t grieve.
Well, I'll grieve the good parts
And then I'll turn inwards and comfort my heart.
I’ll think of the things that I’m leaving behind
All the ghosts, and the smoke, and the toxic guys.
I won’t wait around
- I’ve not got the time -
I can kick back and relax when I get my
Day off in Kyoto
I'll swing by the temple
Grab some lunch from the Seven Eleven.
(Do they have vegan food at the Seven Eleven?)
Ride the Tokyo train all the way to my station.
Consider the goodness you'll find if you're patient.
Meanwhile do you realise where you are?
Staring up here at the brightest star.
Who'd ever have dreamed I'd shoot this far,
I'll light up the night sky yet more from afar.
I can forge my own way
I can light my own spark
I'll travel, unravel, crawl out of the dark.
And as I shoot off, I want you to ask:
If you've ever seen a firework that shoots from the heart?
Thank you for following along so far. I'll catch you on the other side of the world.
I am full of stars,
Char xxx
A glittering goodbye from yours truly xox
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