Dot. Poem by Luke Nicholson

I am aware that as soon as you start to write words such as dark, troubled and childhood in the same sentence you know you’ve taken a turn down self indulgence alley, but there is no avoiding the fact that I had what would be considered a pretty volatile time as a kid.

This would have permitted me (some would say) to have settled for an easy life justified by this knowledge but I never wanted anyone to say “well it’s understandable how he turned out isn’t it… I mean look at what he had to deal with”.

I never wanted to be that what I saw; I always wanted to be more.

Happier.

So I toiled away in another direction toward… well in my head it looks like a little flickering piece of light, a faint but alive dot, and although I’m better suited for another way of existing I make decisions that will hopefully drag me closer toward it.

I believe, I believe that in making these decisions some that are big some that are small like trying not to drink myself into a six day stupor or smoking so much my chest constricts and aches and moans. And the big ones like trying even at my most lost to be a man who is decent and good, one who slugs it out at university day in and day out even though he doesn’t really belong there in the hope that it will lead to a platform of standing otherwise unattainable, that in making these decisions I’ll drag myself closer to it because it promises to be better than anything else I have ever known, happier.

That’s what it’s like when I see you.

I am now to you a mild acquaintance, worthy of the obligatory “how are you? ” or if you’re busy the casual nod.

And I know, I know it’s my fault. The blown perfect moments we could have had in our childhood haunt me like brutal waking dreams again and again, my missed shot at a real thing, all because I was busy medicating my wounds.

Idiot boy.

Though when I see you, no matter how much time has passed since last we spoke, you are like that perfect flickering dot that smiles back at me, you are the promise of possibility I try so hard to get to and I believe, I absolutely have to believe that one day I can reach you and if ever I did I would cherish, with all that I am, my perfect little dot.