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List of songs that make me think about leah

By J.F. Gleeson
Winter 2021 | Nonfiction

A list of songs that make me think about leah and the cold muddy park where a dog tried to steal her lunch and around which i tramped in the rain after she left:

Miracle. Blacktop. Sprained ankle. Brittle boned. Everybody does. Good news. Something. Rejoice. Vessels. Go home. Realiti. Seasons. Butterfly. There’s no one crying over me either. Wherever.

A list of songs that make me think about the songs that make me think about leah:

Lookers. Younger us. Gimmie love. I really like you. Get me. Your graduation. You and me. Hold on. Montana. Pills.

A list of things that make me remember the songs that make me think about leah:

The station, mid december morning before the underground. The sky, mid december blue, through mid december tree. Mid december before christmas. The park (cold muddy brown grey). The park (brown blue sun, mid december to the spring). The bar and its particular colours and how trapped i felt there and how very sick i felt every time i left it. The lunchbox from which the dog tried to steal the sandwich. The special grey of the carpet. The picture of the cat she drew and put into an email. The time she was starting to cry and i could not do anything. The time she wore nice shoes and i could not do anything. The fact that i do not remember. The fact that i remember some times but i do not trust remembering. The fact that i remember not trusting the moments when they were happening. The fact that my feeling for her was great and her feeling for everyone was great. The knowledge that she donated her time in kindness. The knowledge that she is just a city away.

There are a lot of songs that make me think about a lot of things, but these are songs knighted in strange grey winter vacuum, raised up in an obscured time, blotted to memory more than many other times.

I remember the green box i was packing things into at work the week after she had left. I remember a flag pole through the window in the morning. I cannot begin to articulate pure hopelessness but it begins with loss of function.

I remember her the same way i remember being sat in a plastic high chair eating stewed apples. This is the same way i remember tying a skipping rope around my waist and pretending to be yoda in the playground. It is the same way i remember calling an ambulance as i sat in a cafe toilet contorted with gut pain. All past is past, without gradient or scale.

A list of things that constitute pure hopelessness:

Loss of function (eating, bothering, doing). Futility and restlessness. Quieted panic. Staring into a green plastic box.

J.F. Gleeson's work has appeared, or is soon to appear, in Overheard, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Maudlin House, Rejection Letters, the Bear Creek Gazette, Goat’s Milk, The Daily Drunk, Dream Journal, Mandrake and Weird Horror. He has in the past used the pen name John Banning. He has a website.


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