sixteen is never over | Real Stories Gallery

bikewreck © Timothée Barrus (poet, USA)

he was hitch-hiking/ i was on my harley/ it was a very big bike/

i remember the sound of the gravel and the smell of the dust when i pulled over for him/

being on the bike and the way he kept from falling off by holding on to me was better than the sex/

we were both sixteen/ sixteen and furious/ i wore my hair down to my waist/

even then, he was secretive/ today, he tells me he is overwhelmed by self-doubt/

i have no idea what he is talking about/

we drove the bike to california/ i am always taking off for california/

but what is it you want to BE, he asked/ he meant like uuummm when i grew up/

i want to grow dope, i said/ i wanted to be just a little insignificant leave me alone weed grower in northern california/

i still want to be a little insignificant leave me alone weed grower in northern california/

that is all i have ever wanted/ that and i wanted to make love to him under the pine trees at tahoe/

it was a very big bike/

he wanted to be more/ much more…

i still have his smell in my mouth/ not even soap will remove it/ it lasted longer than i thought it would/

at seventeen he started growing very sad/ he did not know why and i did not know why/

today, it does not even fucking matter/ i am not sure what does/ matter/

his father came to see me once/ the man was distraught that i was his son's lover/ we talked/ he wept/

i did not/ weep/ i never do/

he told me stories about when his son was a little boy/ our sons will always be little boys/ to us/

us fathers of the sun and sky/ the father died/

i still taste your son in my mouth/ and i still feel his hands around me on a bike/

but i can barely know him today because he drives me mad/

the next part of this story stunned even me/

it was a very big bike/

he became a spy/ he works for the government/

he tells me about it/ i wish he would shut the fuck up/ he's never kept anything from me/ i am the one who holds back/

i will drive to his house (it is a long way) and sit in my jeep across the street and watch the lights go out/ i

f i rang the bell he would pretend to be glad to see me/ he would fix me a drink/

i would sit in his living room and not say too much and watch him sweat/

i do not want his liquor i do not want his living room i do not want his suburb i do not want his life i do not want his approval i do not want his SUV i do not want his stupid job as a spy/

i do not want him/

what i want is his back pressed against the pine needles on a hill near tahoe right by the lake where you can feel the breeze off the lake chill your nuts and i want my tongue in his mouth and i want him to want me/

it was a very big bike/

he has no idea what the fuck he wants/ he never did/

we used to ride naked at night juiced to the gills no lights look ma no hands/

i wonder if he would hold me on the back of the bike like he used to/

we could still retire and move to california and grow dope, he said/ but i have done that a dozen times/

too little, too late, i told him/ i've never had a real job, i'm a junkie, i have aids, i can't ride bikes anymore, and i'm impotent/

and they won't let me back in northern california/ growing dope was the least of it/

he just sat there in his living room with his drink, staring at me/ i was sorry i had rung the bell/

life and its little ironies, love would be one of them/ long drives would be another/

i wasn't going to ring his bell and then i did/ i'm sorry i did/

it occurred to me that i was the kind of person he spied on/ i can't get the taste of you out of my mouth and i've tried/

he came to me, he kissed me, he sucked my dick/

same smell like an old room i just close my eyes i do not want to want him/

we're not sixteen, tim/ he says/ it was a very big bike/ wreck/

it's over/ what the fuck is he talking about/

sixteen is NEVER over/

the hurting © Aad de Gids (poet, The Netherlands)

“i have been hurt before

beyond the mountains.”

dominique gabrielli

have i been hurt plentifold in that my nervature almost escaped

lied on my skin, constantly innervated even if it were for light or darkness

all places were cryingspaces, in that deepest deepest love mysteriously

concocted with hurt, a haunting almost, depth after depth, les noires.

have i been hurted through woods while momentaneously these sentinels

of death and life radiate a soothing athmosphere of affirmation, calm

endurance. then the hurt came, engraved as runes in olden wood, les bruns.

engraved as with fire in my soul in my heart the pulse now heaving almost gasping

am i hurt along the coasts of time and eternal frissons of wind and salt,

oceanic spray and unexpected gusts, tormentuous love and afterwards the death

of its development. unveiling the wish, then, of death, the basalt cold of death

against that unbearable yet longed longed for rage of the heart, les rouges.

not even bloodless am i hurt in this battle of love, love palpable as a searing

pain, a planigraphical pain also following as well veins as drainage of lymphe,

its nymphes, sylphides, brushing along the nervature, clawing, mauling,the

kiss of death of the lioness. i wouldn’t know what else. les ocres of anciennity.

i know i have a special personal way, sway, with love, as i long to be dead or then

hurted irreciprocally, because i learned love is that, love is death, when, falleth

it is out of your heart, and down to earth, it is, as coldeth, yet called for.

that is my love, i offer everything, love, my life, as i think i should. les pourpres.

yes i am hurt, beyond the mountains, still deerly deerly loved, every morcel

of la trinacria. sicily, land in my heart, where my first devastating feeling of love lies buried

of which i can no longer watch films or documentaries because it rips and pulls

at old old wounds, les roses, unbelievably hurting, knifing, yet sweet, bitter bitter sweet.

yes i have loved. i have loved. i still do, the love now lives in my heart, unimaginably

hurt, yet there is love. les antichambres rouges de la coeur. consuming love consumed

by the fires of the etna, the fires of a long sicilian summer, taormina, catania, palermo,

syracuse. never would i have loved without such snakepit. les blancs masquées.

from the perches of your amorous perfection
the irony of your smile
daggers my wounds

i dream of crying

i can cry tearlessly all the sadness
from the rump of that bitch of the Mediterranean
as she crashes down on my cowed corpse

as the beggar sings

i never buried nobody
never stole no cents
all this judging cuts holes in my flesh

the embrace of darkness’ cinders scolds my hollow eyes

flames burn lonesome in the ruins of useless embers

my enemies do not sleep and they hunt in packs
they have large stupid jaws with ugly words hanging from their tongues

my back is an open target
for their venomous darts

evolution had its way

it beat singularity and creativity to death

and now i roam
and now i roam

and now i beg a god could come
from this battered earth
and leave me solace
in the form a lonely poem

bikewreck © Timothée Barrus (poet, USA)

the hurting © Aad de Gids (poet, The Netherlands)

i dream of crying © Dom Gabrielli (poet, UK/Italy)

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