Snowy streams between valleys. Hazy swept plains channel bulbous carpet. The early peaks stark through toxic blindness, chemical shields. Curious other streaks, Navajo engraved with no depth. Shrouded green land below. 

Pot holes. Canyon runs. Imagining the features below. Map shows only sea.

More rain again. It’s that season. Ducking and dodging the signs under the cover of the old tenements. Been here too long to describe this in detail, just building routine in a dash for a dignified demise. 

It’s crazy how mood can shift within a day. Within a few hours. Avoiding falls reaching for that kidded release. Get old and need less / more.  

Some wild renaissance and burnout rest from out in the sticks with the lady. Three days riding with the boys last week. Another three days straight again this week. Drinking and riding and recovering now.

Things are getting wilder. Confrontations with old aunties. Wild to recall. No regret, just annoyance at her family and the involving bystanders. We’re not kids and it was way past her bed time. I don’t know what she was trying to achieve but going on some righteous lack of purpose drive.

“Tell your gran to fuck off home.”

I don’t do the authorities. Follow Kerouac’s advice of avoidance. Steer the other way. Don’t trust myself with the confrontation and what they can’t accost they can’t.

I drag them out five minutes or so after the cops were called. Old lady blaming one of the young boys of hitting her which was highly imaginative. We don’t care if they’re called but ain’t hanging around and won’t be caught on two wheels.

Into two groups, they to his home, me and the lad to the MTR, forgetting the station and practically falling into blue lights racing out of some automatic gates. The white van cross the junction before us and takes a sharp left towards our previous location. My friend is rattled. Fast we hack towards the station. Get out of the satellite city before we’re harassed in the ‘ma fan’ of explaining away, avoiding fines and missing that last train.

That was Friday with work the following morning. Contrasting beings again to the luxurious life of the village duplex we chill now. Rabid city nights. Split personas.

Saturday wasn’t much better, another wild exhibit on the Wan Chai Seaside, heavily documented by curious passers. Loud Aussie punk, beers, a litre of tequila, hash and Valium – and a cheap birthday cake. Literal blood sweat and tears watching the same friend fall, split an eye in near concussion. I’ve seen it too many times and reframed from the attention. The photos are vivid. Small radiant puddles of blood under the artificial light of iPhones. Some renaissance shit. Wiped out, Troll or Viking-esque.

Ascending steps, bag strap across your forehead. Sherpa-like uniformed child late evening.

Heading out and hoping against the rain. Totally unpredictable, getting stares for my oddity. Two wheels, easy through the wet market. Skyways and trains to the island.

I need to avoid you, spend some time apart. Too much drama, when did it all gets so toxic? I don’t even see you so that should be easy. Things are too tight, overlapping, inter-related. If you want to go on holiday with her, that’s alright, but I’ll do whatever I like. You have no right to tell me who and what I can befriend.

Didn’t deny anything, but dismissed the ridiculous, timelines. Avoided topics and apologised somewhat without restraint.

You guys can do what you want now, I care not. In my mind continuously. Accepting the chaos.

Big mess. Totally drenched. Arrived at Exhibition to the beginning on an onslaught. Progressively came and pushed us under cover, under that monstrosity protruding of Wan Chai.

Smell. Damp and sweet, unwashed shins and worn out all. Totally careless – to a degrees. Racing for and fighting the “last train to Sheung Shui”

Long time since that ledge. A lost and of lost steam in-between worlds. Things were a little better than of recent. Relocated live music streaming across the junction- an enthusiastic voice advertising East Coast beaches and greetings of paradise.

Very rarely frequent this island. Fish out of water of sorts. Done with that sort. Guess it’s all real. Less real for me. Escaping reality and labour.

Strange to see no faces. The old English in baggy, noticeably cheap jeans – ambiguous threads, dark off-blue. Peers of mostly home resembling now.

Yeah, I’m waiting for J as well. I don’t know who you is still here. Eyeing our friend’s name and RIP, permanently scrawled on a tired electrical box with hip’ stickers and unintelligibly and thick, American strokes. This is possibly his only memorial.

He’s there oblivious seeing daily. Below the green and orange bands. Holding his camera 90 for his young and old south Asians.

Avoiding distraction.

Saving on the lunch sets. Reading characters with gist only. Japanese, style, … , beef, … , noodles. Counting on the safety of past experience and the generic nature of lunch.

Comes a rare white soup thin ramen. Flakes of beef with neon corn. Black strips of mystery fungi and preserved eggs out of context. Never seen it before. Non-local. Resembles a bee. Contrasts with the luminous borsch containing likely more vitamins. The brightest thing eaten of memory.

Our inner city world collapsed. Shifting circles and new habits. Noticing new things, and watching bodies change in flesh and media.

We were happy together until that final night. Misunderstandings and calculations regarding money and expectations. Big children of different levels sharing with tension. Probably should’ve spelled things out earlier. Alone now, some solace. Colours less vibrant and static again. Desperate for a new chapter. Reset and repeat.

Swimming in the late oily pools. Ground pale stones of the crumbling cliffs collected in the mouth of a shallow cave. Hijabs and pale bones – the locals of central Anatolia. We all jump from rocks, eyes open under the turquoise blue.

Premature departures. Missed opportunities. Copernicus now. Satellites moving, avoiding the sun to age less. I am not lying now, nor staying still. Five months of growth and decay, still laughed and loved.

External music changes tune. Jarring mood of the left. Left the Lycian YOLO – archaic in Antalya.

Holiday tattoos

Walking to town daily, crossing paths with kin of a slower pace back home. Kind of nice counting the shade in summer under black clouds blasting white then.

Settled fast and new friends again. Routines of cheap drinks in chain bars. Greeting ghosts daily. Quiet drinks and to attention.

Vast change. Dipped toes in so many pools, invoking foreign conversation. Way more connection with others. Students own the centre. The old locals, way further noticeably absent – or exceptionally rough.

Just saw your mate again. Walks out into the rain shouting, “It’s only fucking rain.” Such a sight. The shine of his head.

Such stress of finding rooms for less than 25. Capitalise. Charge a fortune for doing fuck all but providing a toilet and cleaning duties – some dues. For yer dad, this is.

Knowing what it’s like to be dead – rundown, recovering, and acting. On yer own now. Temporarily acquainting Portuguese others. Mid-day, knowing of the later riot and going early. Rare breeds always. I’m not paying and will go wild. Bored of being bored here.

So there’s a load of them. Poor living in the mountains, I guess you could call it. The girl I met lives there. We met up north on a job. She’s banging, real young and alternative. So I get the train, ride and walk, hang out with the poor boys. I’d do it too, if I had the cash.

Mark don’t move man. Still at his mothers, and fathers, always skint. Works for Jaguar Land Rover and has a personalised plate. It’s an excuse man, that phrase, too much dollar. When I’m skint, and you are, you know about it – skint skint.