In two months time
I shall be eighteen
And adolescence
Fading into memory

But I retain
A pocketful of memories
And pictures

The half-naked embrace
Of my nymph-like lover
In seclusion
On the green grass of may
Caresses so tender
They took my breath away
And oh!
She was so fragile
As we shared cheap cigarettes
I doubt that I shall feel
The warmth of the sun on my face
With such beautiful joy
Ever again.

But further back,
There must be more?
It's muddled, but still there.

Some years ago
Again, eternal summer
Embraced me every Saturday
And when you are fourteen
To while away an afternoon
Opposite MacDonalds
Is fine.
Dim memories of excellent friends
Who proved less so
And this is how I bled away my youth?

Learning guitar
Locked inside
Afraid to go out
This town is hardly a metropolis
But people still want to do you harm
If you dress a little strangely
And I used to wear ripped jeans
When I was fifteen
Which was awfully strange
For this place.

Is it winter now?
Huddled on benches
With chips and vodka
And the best of friends
And how eagerly we talked
Of beauty, philosophy
And art
And a thousand in-jokes
Lived and died every night
The novelty of socialising
After dark!

And a quiet afternoon
Under a small road bridge
In an alcove accessible
Only by a climb up the cobblestones
And the cars passing above and below
The backdrop to
A half-hearted debate
About which Nirvana song was best

So hard to recollect
A great deal
Before last summer
Or even last week
But there is something more
That will always endure

Lazy afternoons
Sprawled on the recreation grounds
Idly watching families pass by:
A romantic idyll
In the shade of a tree
or an ill-prepared picnic
With ill-assorted friends
The excitement of living
With such awful taste in music
And such awful taste
In alcohol

I cannot describe
This stale bewilderment
It is as if
A part of me had gone
On a voyage back
Into the land of the past
And I'll never see
That part of me
Again

It is so strange
Not to have the energy
Or the precision
To write
A hundred vague memories
And times when I should have
Done something more memorable

In two months time
I shall be eighteen
And I have almost
Bled away my youth