Welcome to My life in the shadows



 

PART TWO

 
THE STREETS
By the time I turned twelve I was out of control and driving my folks to an early grave. I had made new friends, the kind of friends my Father said would come to no good end and he was right and I knew he was. They were the kind of kids that I thought I would be safe with, the tuff guys, the slick fingered shop lifters, the beer chasers, the smoke blowers, the car thief’s. The kind of friends I felt would always have my back.

THE THORNBIRDS

Somehow after the clash
We try to leave anger
With the angry
Blocking that sting of pain
 
Still when that stick
Comes crashing home in the dark
Of another desperate basement,
We tend to search
For something to hold onto,
 A bullet to bite,
Before we become bottled up
Within our own boiled emotions.
 
Yet, it’s in the knowing eyes of others
That we play to.
An uncomfortable thought
We slowly become saddled with
When touched.
It is in these childhood days
That the damage is done,
Too young
To understand how to set our sights
Just a wee bit higher.
 
It’s just so hard
At that tinder age of 12
When still we see ourselves
As someone else’s little flower- -
Picked
And beaten
Between the thorns.
 
Summer 1962
Page 53
 
uTAH jAY


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PART TWO THE THORNBIRDS