I noticed him but he chose not to notice me. After he had dropped his mobile phone on the floor for the third time, he realised that he had to say something.
Life Story: The Third Drop
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Tag Archives: Words
Stolen Words – “It takes me years to finish a book.”
“I have no talent. It’s just a question of working, of being willing to put in the time.”
– Novelist Graham Greene (1904-1991) speaking to American author Michael Mewshaw in 1972.
Come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned
The curtains quiver, the window blows open and into the room flies a lovely boy clad only in cobwebs and autumn leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees.
Seven cool things that I heard this week
“ I heard Earth, Wind and Fire singing ‘Ba-dee-ya’ on the radio, and I thought, oh no, this is another step towards autumn.” – a woman on the bus referring to the song September.
“There in the shade, like a cool drink waiting, he sat with slow fire in his eyes, just waiting.” – Johnny Hartman singing A Slow Hot Wind.
“He comes from an old Dorset family that made grandfather clocks and had a swan’s head as their emblem.” – a posh woman boasting about the man who her daughter is marrying.
“Hey, is there anywhere to play pickleball around here?” – a student in Starbucks.
“I can hear monks chanting.” – Charlie laid in bed in the middle of the night.
“The drawback is that you always get corn dust up your bum.” – a farmer on the radio.
“Come and look at this rock, it’s shaped like your willy!” – a young girl shouting to her older brother.
Stolen Words / The essence of finality
Annie Ernaux. ‘Les Années’ / ‘The Years’. Paris. 2008.
That Moment / There is a penis in my Guinness
The bartender pours me a pint of Guinness. There is something exciting about him. The fantasy, service, and the desire are charged with a kind of unspoken drama, where connection and expression flourish.
He stands at the centre of this world: confident, attentive, just out of reach. There’s power in the dynamic where he’s part host, part performer, and part confessor. That mix of emotional availability and physical proximity is incredibly compelling.
He leaves the Guinness to settle and waits. It’s a subtle performance of masculinity, of beauty, and a flirtatious smirk. There’s a silent dialogue: who’s paying attention to whom? He represents a safe focal point for flirtation and fantasy. He’s someone I want to admire, talk to, maybe even imagine a story with, without needing it to be real. It’s an aesthetic moment as much as an emotional one.
He’s a kind of canvas – with a quiet understanding, a rescuer, a rebel, a secret crush. Each interaction, no matter how fleeting, is charged with possibility.
He starts pouring again, and I ask for a four-leaf clover on the top of the Guinness. When he hands me the drink, I see that he’s tried to draw one in the foam.
I think there’s something haunting and poetic to explore in this distance between us – the observer and the observed where we are both muse and mirror. That space between emotional hunger and aesthetic distance – that quiet pull toward someone who may never cross the line into intimacy.
I realise that he hasn’t drawn a four-leaf clover after all and can see that it is a penis instead. He leans over and whispers that only wankers draw a four-leaf clover. I take a sip, and he smiles, quietly calling me a cocksucker.
The boy in the alley is like a ghost of last night
He sits like a ghost of last night, knees raw, boots scuffed, a slouch that says he’s seen too much for someone too young to carry it. The alley’s a graveyard of pallets and metal, the air thick with the stale breath of kegs that haven’t been touched since the last fight or fuck. The wall at his back don’t care who he is, and neither does the city — just another boy in borrowed clothes, dragging the hem of his story through concrete and piss. His eyes don’t beg. They dare. As if to say: I’m not lost — I’m choosing to stay gone. Everything here’s worn out —the barrels, the bricks, the boy. But there’s poetry in the ruin, and he knows it. He’s not posing. He’s waiting. For the light to change, for someone to look twice, or maybe just for the silence to settle in enough to sleep.
That Moment / Actually, I do happen to resemble a hallucination
A baseball cap and a touch of peach fuzz on his chin. He sat at the bar and I saw flashes of flesh around his ankles. At that moment, he might have been the sexiest person in the world. But then he started talking to somebody who wasn’t there, and argued with somebody else who wasn’t there either. He didn’t say anything to me and I WAS there, but I was grateful for that.
That Moment / Once you ignored me, and now I am special
I saw you several times and you ignored me. Why do I remember that? It was because I thought you were handsome. But ignorance turned into friendship, and I hadn’t realised how generous you were. And that generosity came from Robin Hood. Steal from the wealthy, and give it to others. I met you tonight, fresh faced and smart, a tap on the shoulder, a cheeky wink, and you gave me a bottle of beer. I doubted that you had ever ignored me.
Thus with a kiss I might die
“Amidst the babble and the cackle,
A voice shouts loudest,
I am Romeo and you must come to me.
And I hear that voice,
I say, Verona, at last I am coming to thee.”
Perfectly Hard and Glamorous 