{"id":873,"date":"2013-08-21T06:03:01","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T06:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?page_id=873"},"modified":"2016-05-28T05:22:22","modified_gmt":"2016-05-28T05:22:22","slug":"the-girl-in-the-park","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?page_id=873","title":{"rendered":"The girl in the park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walking home, through the park.
\nShift over, heading home. Idling, lost in thoughts of tea.
\nTwo girls, seventeen or so perhaps, laughing, joking.
\nHeading towards me, I should look away.
\nFeeling bold for a change, I keep my head up,
\nall too aware of the caustic sting to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aware of my age, and lack of interest to those so young.
\nBut what the hell? Hurt no long matters,
\nyears of slings and arrows have left the hide armoured.
\nThe dark one looked up, saw me, noticed my existence for the first time.
\nOur eyes met, time sheered, thirty years fell away.<\/span><\/p>\n

She smiled, caught out perhaps. Or perhaps she saw with me
\nmy old self,\u00a0 shyly worshiping the college girl.
\nPorcelain skin, quirky face, funny, no, not beautiful.
\nHer figure adequate, no more than that, no, more than that,
\ntall, slim, fine-boned.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was perfect for me, no matter who she was,
\nwhen she was, she was the one.
\nHundreds before her faded, those yet to come, a myth.
\nA decade enthralled. Years of lonely, hiding myself
\nfrom her. Just to touch her skin, finger to finger,
\nto hold her eye, to say the right thing for once.<\/span><\/p>\n

To sit in her room, to talk of things, meaningful.
\nFor her to willingly climb with me, take wet moorland walks.
\nUnashamed to\u00a0 hold my hand in cheap pubs,
\nto sneak back student digs, halls of residence.<\/span><\/p>\n

To share a cup, and always, yes, to go to bed.
\nSoftly, gently, to touch.
\nThat would have been enough, though it never was to be.
\nBut then she turned away, the spell was broken.<\/span><\/p>\n

They walked past, giggling,
\nI think she shouted something at my back,
\nIt didn\u2019t matter.
\nFor a short minute, or a few long hours,
\nI had been back there.
\nThe sad sweet longings of memory rekindled.
\nI wish I could have thanked her for that.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walking home, through the park. Shift over, heading home. Idling, lost in thoughts of tea. Two girls, seventeen or so perhaps, laughing, joking. Heading towards me, I should look away. Feeling bold for a change, I keep my head up, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1849,"menu_order":14,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-873","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/873\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}