Have you ever lost someone? Someone really close?
Perhaps a girlfriend or boyfriend.. a wife or a husband?
Maybe your mother or father, a son or a daughter..
Or even just a friend.. that special friend..
The one that you completely open up to
and feel like you have finally discovered
what it means to be "at home with"..
- fully able to be yourself. Having "found" yourself!
Maybe it's because you resonate with this person
and until the moment you found them, you were Alone
drifting in an unforgiving sea with a never-ending, undulating motion
like an empty sickness and in an incomprehension..
Washed up, and near drowned out..
A beach... accidentally discovered..
An island, in fact!
Your "Rock".
Somewhere on the edges of society
Out in the freakish zone
You suddenly "fit"
A triangular peg through a triangular hole..
Out on the Fringe..
And what is it like.. when this person you've found..
Who is your "all" and "everything"..
Far from the norm, but whilst here, You: finally "normal"
Is in the hospital.. not long to go now..
Soon they will come to an end..
I don't know about you.. but for me
Life is a once-through experience..
Memories and re-runs can be wonderful, it is true..
But it is the newness of each of life's episodes
The "unknown" of what is to come
That makes life worth living..
A memory.. well, you've already lived that..
You know how it ends..
So here you are.. in this place..
and suddenly you can't see them any more..
It's not yet over..
But it's like they've been rushed into surgery..
And your credit card doesn't work..
You can't get any more F$
And you just have to wait..
and wait...
and Wait..!
Until finally.. they're available once again..
Out of surgery... that was a close call...
But deep down inside..
You know there's not long left
Before their time has finally come..
And it is over.
Permanently.
And there's a difference between having to wait..
And then, choosing to wait..
Because, suddenly, you don't want it to be over..
You don't want it to end..
You've become so attached to these people
Who, like you, are out on the Fringe
And it's not just "living vicariously"
It's a deeply felt connection.. and a place you call home
A people, where you're you...
And then they're gone..
You can hear the machine flat-lining.
You knew this moment would come..
And torn between holding out..
And experiencing the end you knew had to come..
It is finally here..
And they're gone.
Not just a person.
But an entire family.
A "people"
A reality.
An existence.
I'm not one for re-living memories...
I'd rather experience the new...
But for some strange reason
Out here on the Fringes of society
I would rather turn the pages
Of this album..
And experience what's already known..
These Memories..
The ups and downs.. the joys and pains..
Knowing their outcomes.. their fates..
Than, perhaps, forever be separated.
For someone that only prefers the new...
It is quite something to not part with the old...
And stay with a "known outcome".
But friends like these don't come along every day..
And will forever have a place in my heart.
Rest In Peace, Fringe. For not only have you been my friend...
I would rather cherish the memories of a now-sealed fate
Than lose you forever.
