The nights had grown colder; the blistering sun seemed to begin its descent sooner and sooner every day. Skinny-fitted denim jackets, covered in patches of your favourite Punk Rock bands (whether the wearer knew of them was another question entirely), were being phased out in turn for larger peacoats with as many buttons as you could count and topped off with dark knitted scarves to keep as little skin as possible from being exposed.
Walking through the park leaves were my companion, the crunching and scruffing of them added a soundtrack to those late-night jaunts though obviously not as appealing as that perfectly crafted iPod playlist that was created earlier that day whilst journeying on the bus back from work.
"Perfectly crafted" was an understatement too; it was a melding of so many genres, you had the Punk Rock classics like Ramones and Sex Pistols, a few rarities were snuck-in like Dag Nasty, the Buzzcocks and Flipper, the genius that was Robert Smith was given more than enough coverage too, highlighting his darkside with "One Hundred Years" but also his flamboyance with "Just Like Heaven" (cliché, I know) and "Never Enough".
Every step, every crunch that sounded I found myself on a pathway to an undefined destination, it was almost like I was searching for a place, searching for a life that I didn't have but what made it even more scary was that I was unaware of what or where this life was. Though I was going down this path, was it the right one?
"1 2 3 4!" yelled Dee Dee, the blasting sonics of those four New Yorkers really did soothe my soul, and though their music did remind me of former failures, I liked to look past those and focus on Joey Ramones' vocals as opposed to the memories. To focus on the guitar work of Johnny and Dee Dee, trying to guess which album the song was taken from, trying to guess which incarnation of the band it was, trying to guess when the track would abruptly end like so many Ramones classics did, these were the things I preferred to be roaming through my head, not past downfalls.
As the stroll continued I found myself haloed by street lights every few yards, basking in the lucent shafts, though artificial it was the closest I had gotten to real light in months thanks to my top and tail-houred job. As a youngster I never cared about light or the bright months of the year, I always saw myself as more suited for winter, with summer just being the time where I would sweat an unhealthy amount and complain about either going on holiday or not going on holiday, whichever was the case that year. Now at the tender age of 23 I find myself craving the sunshine, understanding just what people mean when they talk about how a clear sun-filled day can bring joy and improve the mood. A smile in June is a regular occurrence now, it’s a given, but as the months drive on the mouth closes, the dimples dissipate and all that is left are clenched lips requiring hourly treatment from lashings of Vaseline balm.
But these walks were just as much about self-discovery as they were just a way to get out of a broken home, and as a pompous music snob (and proud of it) I riddled this perfect playlist with more than just aggressive Punk Rock, I would never be that close-minded when it came to the crafting of my music-partner; it wasn't just anger that had to escape, these trips were also a way to remedy the mind and self, to rethink the days gone by since the last adventure and to reflect on them.
The American Indie scene had rapidly became one of my favourite things to listen to, and with it being from the far-off land and so under-appreciated I felt like it was all mines to gorge on, like a solider coming back from years at war and being welcomed by an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Triathlon, Ivadell, Wax Idols, Kitten, the list could go on: the playlist boasted so many tracks from this wave of youngsters that were just writing and singing about all sorts, ranging from simple love-woes to decadent cries for a savage night of intense fucking, from longing for self-improvement to rallies of the World's end. This side of music was what inspired me; it was these artists that made me dream at night about being on stage, taking that microphone and showing off my inner Bowie!
But alas that seems to be a one path that I do know where it leads, or at least I do for the time being due to the culture difference between having these types of band in the States and having them here.
As my size 11 knock-off Doc Martins killed tens of leaves by the second I couldn't help but wonder if she was thinking about me. I liked to think that she was, if I'm perfectly honest I liked to think she was lying in her bed writhing in pain from missing me, daydreaming of my aquatic blue eyes. This thought process was what had conditioned me to periodically check my phone for notification updates every few minutes, even though vibrate was on and set to its highest leg-shaking setting. It didn't matter what the notification was for either; a like for a sarcastic Facebook post that was accompanied by an unrelated gif image to lessen the effects, a favourite for an equally sarcastic Tweet that was more than likely directed to a group of youths yelling who had been too loud on either of the earlier bus rides (but inside I was just secretly jealous of their inhibitions), hell at this point I'd even take a heart for an Instagram post showing-off a shot from my past modelling shoot where my eyeliner was as thick as it had ever been applied and my chest hair was on full display for all to see.
"Why won't you shaaaaag me?!" rang through my ears, a track taken from an album based on a little-known TV series from 1999, memories of that decades' finest tracks flood my head and body. Though if I’m honest these "memories" are more made up primarily of revisiting them since at an older age, though still some hang-on from small snippets taken from adult conversations that I had heard whaled through my house whilst I was in bed as a young child, hoping and waiting for that invitation to come down and enjoy the festivities.
Never the less the music, the thick British accents that slung out these lyrics of counter-culture was something that I found myself very adverse to and something I could only handle in small, precise doses. I had never been a person that you'd find listening to Blur for hours on end, or caring about which Gallagher brother had left the, what seemed like ever changing, Oasis line-up this time. I personally had never cared about them, and their music never appealed to me, though I'd be lying if I said that if during my night-time circuit around the local park and "Some Might Say" came on, that I wouldn't be a little joyous, thanks to this it was one of the few remnants of BritPop that had slithered its way into this masterpiece of a collection.
I find myself walking past what looks like the same bench over and over, this one rain-soaked bench kept on forcing its way into my line of sight, I felt like Fred Flinstone running against a continuously recycled background. I'd have sat down too (if for no other reason to check my phone again, I had taken the risk of skipping the last few minutes' check, so who knew what kind of notification-splendour was waiting for me on my cracked HTC screen), but the bench, which was in fact a different one, I am aware, but even still they all had the same residue stains plastered all over them. I was not going to park the seat of my £40 Topman Super Spray-On jeans down on anything that looked that defaced, no matter how distressed I wanted my denim to look. Plus they were black; you don’t get stains out of black, never 100%.
The sights I would see became as regularly patterned as the benches, every evening that I ventured out I would see the same people, walking the same dogs, we pass the same slight head-nod's and we go on our way, waiting and wondering how long these serendipitous encounters could last before we actually had a fully-fledged conversation. The air grows more bitter by the second it feels, and the further I walk the ratio of leaf to path jumps from one end of the scale to the other, and believe me when you’re walking and keep your head looking down for the most part, you notice. The brown decaying leaves start to form these sequences, paintings of dying stems changing like a holographic trading card every time I lower my foot. Though the music is booming (currently on a great string of tracks; Norma Jean "Face:Face", Eighteen Visions "She Looks Good In Velvet" and now my mind is able to recover from the last few Metalcore assaults with Nine Inch Nails’ "La Mer"), the sound of the leaves are still penetrating me from the feet upwards, they add a sense of time to these odyssey's which is both a good thing and a bad.
Time has started to become an enemy of mines, there’s so much that I have to do, that my life and inner soul will me on to do every day, from the second my lid's open in the morning revealing my panda-like appearance to when they close at night. It’s almost like I'm being punished, trialled for a crime that I wish I knew if I had committed or not; my body and mind want me to be living this life, but when asked, when I look inside during my darkest nights huddled under covers, staring at my Netflix account hoping someone would make the tough choice of whether to watch more X-Files or Futurama for me, when I ask myself where I'm going, where is it that my heart is taking me I'm met with nothing more than a silence. A shrug.
"Whoaaa-oaa livin' on a pray..." *skip*, even the most perfect playlists have some dead-weight. I probably thought including some 80's hair metal was a good idea at the time when the grey jogger-clad youths were screaming all around me, but now in the solitude of the night, not so much.
It’s getting late too, I feel like I've been walking for hours, I feel like I must be coming to the close of this playlist soon, but when I check the time (on my phone of course, I tell myself it’s not an excuse to check on my social status but even I know that that's complete bullshit at this point) the time reads 20:08, a mere forty minutes since I had set off. I sigh and continue on, the leaves are starting to fade off to the sides of the path, like it’s almost creating an opening for me, a parting of this urban sea. Right now the metallic cross that hangs on the beat-up leather cord around my neck feels as important as the Bat-symbol.
Suddenly two quick vibrates go off, I feel them but try and keep my composure, to play it cool and act (to myself) that I don’t "need" them, putting on my best Danny Zuko face but every second I don’t pull out the silver slab of technology my heartbeat multiples tenfold. I know that those particular vibrate beats indicate that it’s a personal message; my mind starts racing with guesses of what was in store for me, was it a simple "hey", a little flirtatious winky-face, or in my wildest thoughts and prayers, a selfie of beauty.
My mind and heart are both going a thousand miles a minute, so I finally yank out my phone (in the process unknowingly pulling out a half-used packet of chewing gum that would now be lost to me and my mint-craving taste buds forever). I swipe past the unnecessary security measures like they are barriers to my ecstasy only to reveal that the message was from an old friend asking to meet up later in the week. My heart sinks; a dull numbness fills me for the next few minutes and the word "FUCK" travels through my veins to every nerve ending. I don’t reply.
Some time passes until I finally recapture my full conscious to find I have now left the confines of the park and am heading towards the waterfront. Thankfully I had followed suit and had dressed to the nine's in my H&M peacoat that had been my go-to Winter jacket for years now, with an added blood-red silk scarf and a pair of fingerless gloves, though these had become nothing more than an accessory thanks to their tip-less nature at this point. The wind was starting to pick up too now, blowing any stray lifeless leaves to-and-fro through the deserted streets; it was a Wednesday night, at this time I assumed everyone was at home, hunkered down watching their favourite garbage TV show, even the ever-showing man with the dog had probably retreated home for that nights edition of Coronation Street. I say I assumed everyone was because I didn't know what time it was, after the previous let-down of a notification I decided to turn my phone on silent, my excitement had now turned to reluctance and fear.
"Nothing to win, and nothing left to lose, and you giiiive yourself away", Bono serenades me as I meet the short stone wall that dammed the river in place. I look out, for a second envisioning myself in some sort of Art House movie while U2 act as background melody, I look out and wonder. I don’t know what I’m wondering about entirely, but I know I’m wondering. I am then slammed back into reality with the screams of Davey Havok, instantly changing this Art House movie into a Tony Hawks video game, pulling me back onto my route to wherever.
Though I am layered with thick black coarse-wool my teeth still chatter, I’m not all that cold either, it just happens. My footsteps are now without sound too, the leaves and gravel-laden groundwork of the park had given way to flat concrete and stone, so instead of a crunch all there is is a flat-packed slap every step. As I found myself approach my summit I start thinking again, but as usual there are too many thoughts flying through the ether for me to focus on just one; not being able to focus on one aspect but rather finding myself becoming overwhelmed and trapped by an array of differing sized particles of thought.
The decreasing temperature, working together with the time and my own sense of purpose were dictating that I was nearing my journey's peak, and a turn-around to return to the place that was the closest thing to "home" that I could attest to having was near. This sense of home was false, a home is where you feel comfort, you feel love and you can live how you want; it’s your shelter. For me I would be returning to a divided war zone where no weapon was too extreme, where no action was deemed too vile and there was no such thing as misconduct.
I felt around my right pocket, the bulge of my phone still acting as a ghost, haunting me and turning my insides; I don’t know where this devotion and reliance for all things Social Media began, I always thought of myself as one of the outcasts, as someone that would stray from that aspect of the aging world. I always told people, and still do, that I thrived for physical contact, real conversations partnered by the sometimes awkward facial expressions or nervous ticks when something risky escapes from the throat. Now however I find myself staring at a screen, waiting for those three little dots to pop-up and juggle up and down to indicate that the other person was trying to piece together the perfect answer, like an essay, looking to get full marks.
"I don't mind, if she's low or if she's high!" comes thrusting, dripping with glamour and sex-in mind from James Hart's mouth - you see that’s the problem, I do mind, I always do and in recent years as I've become someone that’s devoted so much time to others, I've found myself minding too much perhaps. Is this a bad thing, is caring a bad thing? It shouldn't be, in this world where hate is so potent in society, where every night a different tragedy or attack or misdeed is showcased on every news channel. Caring isn't a bad thing, there should be more, however as I trace back over my footsteps that I had just created minutes before, I realise that there's a moment that you need to stop caring as much and let that person be free a little. Am I too cynical then? Do I not trust the world in the sense that I can't see an end to the hate and pain?
I feel as though I have finally grasped a-hold of one of those thoughts that had been pestering my brain for so long, I will not let go.
Returning to where I started on the waterfront path brings me to a monument; a man stands tall as if he were taunting my inner demons, laughing at me for my lack of faith in the world. I stop and just stare for a moment, with the same screeches of James Hart pounding my eardrums, I just stare with my eyes clenching. I know it’s a pose, it’s an object who's lack of movement would put the greatest mime's in the world to shame, still when I see that bronze face looking down at me I can’t help but feel anger and disdain for all that he had accomplished, for how much respect he still commands after being dead for what I assume had been centuries, and me, alive and (mostly) well but with little shreds of respect to my name. Maybe all I'm missing is the coat of bronze and the word "cunt" spray painted on my ass.
Now I know for sure my once fresh playlist had run its course, I recognized a repeat, though I wasn't adverse to hearing Iain Curtis lull me with his twisted soul-encrusted words, demanding that love will indeed tear us apart. I know I’m close to the end of my journey, but I decide to take the long way home so to limit the amount of time I have to spend there as much as I can.
I miss the leaves at this point; the urban jungle that I was now wandering through just didn't have that same feel to it. The leaves had added a crispness to my strides, it brought a sense of nature to these walks whereas now I was surrounded by cigarette ends, mounds of spit (some coloured in unhealthy shades of green) and discarded cans that made the streets seem like a living, ever changing corporate advertisement.
As the music goes on, and as I make my way home I begin to think about what’s waiting for me there, in the sense of what else I can fill my night up before I eventually fall asleep. In recent months I had started to tease myself with the idea of acquiring knowledge, I started to buy books and latch myself onto their every word, try to hack out some time every night and make my way through them in an effort to feed my mind. I was getting there, and I rather enjoyed doing it too as I had found myself really soaking in as much as I could. I actually started to write out my own little stories, songs, poems, anything at all that I could do to let my brain eject this newly acquainted savvy; I never thought anything that I had put to paper was outstandingly great but I felt it was the effort that counted and with that a sense of pride was still able to be found, and sometimes I dabbled in using my laptop but in doing that I found myself becoming ever distracted by those three little juggling dots again. My mind's education and feeding time was pushed to the side in favour of either having mindless conversations or awaiting those same conversations to begin. Though I am aware inside that I’m not engaging in these conversations for myself all the time, but instead I’m putting myself out there so others know that I am free and available to help. Free and available to care.
Droplets of rain start to hit the pavement, some accompanying the sequence of my footsteps, I know I’m near my home and I was running low on remaining detours that I could take to further my wayfaring but I still wanted to see just how long I could keep it up. I started to dread walking in and sitting down because I knew I'd have to take my phone out and with it in hand I'd have to look at it, I'd have to face its disfigured self and quite honestly I don’t know if my internal self could take it. The fear had been building up, through countless genre's, through countless Keith Buckley-front songs, through Justin Sane, through Tim McIlrath, Liam Cormier, Henry Rollins, HR, Danzig, Emily Haines, Buddy Nielsen, Greg Puciato, Darren Hayes; this fear of the unknown had crippled all but my ability to walk over the course of the last 90 minutes.
I start my ascent up the sloped trail to my base of rest, and I can actually feel myself shaking, my nerves are in shock and my stomach is wrapped in so many knots not even the most diligent and motivated person could untangle it. I’m scared and not even the mellow lullabies of the Beach Boys could lessen my anxiety.
I open the door and to my surprise no one is around, they had all retreated to an early bed which instantly brings some relief to my soul and even maybe untwists some of those tangles. I unwrap myself of the cumbersome heavy black H&M branded jacket and loosen the now wrinkled scarf. I was fine with the wrinkles though, it made it look that more textured so I gave it a happy pass. The worn look is so in just now.
Undoing my studded belt and sliding off my boots I can feel the rectangular device that held all my unease digging into my leg and side. Emptying my pockets I discover that I am once again a packet of chewing gum down, thankfully I have enough to hold over my oral-fixation till tomorrow when I could buy more before work.
I park down on the sofa, it’s not as blemished as the bench but I still feel uneasy resting my expensive denim on its cushions (which cushioned in name only). I take a deep breath, *exhale*....*inhale*...*exhale*...*inhale*...I take out my phone....*exhale*
The little green light is flashing, that means there is at least one notification to give a damn about, and if I’m honest this relives me even more and again dissolves some of the anxiety. I once again move past the security measures to find one sole message icon flashing. I start to have flashbacks and begin to think maybe I hadn't swiped away the previously soul-shattering message properly and that was there to bring it all back to me, to carry on the bronze man's barbs.
Slowly my thumb descends onto the screen, with its cracked screen the motion needs to be firm but also gentle to make the action count but to not damage the already shard-decorated glass. My own heart feels like the fractured screen as I tremble, opening up the icon.
The single line simply reads "Missing you <3".
