This weekend my brother and I danced to songs I hadn’t danced to for years, and I was reminded of the shabby nightclubs of my teenage years, smelling of cigarette smoke and sexual frustration. We danced under ultraviolet light, round piles of handbags, drank vodka and lime, and hoped we’d get a partner for the final slow dance of the evening. We always went to the toilets in pairs.
You see, I’m a small town girl, from a place that’s a punchline in a joke about the North. I come from a town of terraced houses and tripe stalls; a town that ripped its own heart out 30 years ago in protest at being destroyed. People are always surprised to hear that’s where I’m from. I left a town that nobody ever leaves, my accent softened, my horizons expanded. I think the town has changed more than I have, though. The pits closed, the community drifted. The old, family run businesses faded away, and the chain stores moved in.
I bet the nightclubs are still shabby, though, and still full of teenage girls hoping to find love in the darkness.
snow melts in the sun
spring tiptoes between the trees
small buds start to swell
A haibun for Mish, at dVerse. Two or three tight paragraphs and a haiku. Pop over to the dVerse bar. They’re serving poetry. I won’t be drinking vodka and lime, though…I added the Youtube video because I suddenly realised where that tiptoeing spring came from.
I liked your description of your home town, one no one leaves that ripped its heart out. It makes me want to know more about that place.
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Thanks, Frank.
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An interesting remembrance, Sarah. I’m sure I wouldn’t know the town or how it’s viewed, but you’ve conveyed a bit of what it was like. Lovely haiku.
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How brilliant that you and your brother can still dance together! My sisters wouldn’t dream of it. I remember so well ‘shabby nightclubs of my teenage years, smelling of cigarette smoke and sexual frustration’ and the ultraviolet light’. But in Cologne we didn’t dance round handbags.I was the one that got away from the town that nobody ever leaves and, if it wasn’t for my husband being one of those who stayed, I would never have met up with him again. I love the ambiguity of the haiku!
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This leaves me wondering just where is this town and what is it called? Shabby nightclubs are always filled with teenage girls looking for princes on white horses!
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You’ve whipped up my curiosity about your old town. I loved the tale and the haiku is perfect…with the last line reminding me of maturing teenage girls.
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You have piqued my curiosity! I love the ending, because young love really never changes does it?
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There are things about being a teenage girl I would never go back to. Once is enough! I am glad you had a chance to leave and expand your horizons. I love accents though!
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You must be from Detroit! Your description of your youth is very familiar as I think back to the teens of my day as well. Frustrated teens still exist!! Nice work.
Dwight
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As another small town girl, I can relate to so much of this. Your haiku is so pretty as “spring tiptoes between the trees”.
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Thank you. Thinking about it today, maybe I was echoing “Dirty Old Town”.
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Bet it was Barnsley. I feel some of the emotions in your poem, Sarah, and the memories (the vodka and lime especially, and going to the toilet in pairs) and the desperation of people clinging to the awful job of coal mining because that’s all there was.
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It was Barnsley! I’m very impressed – but you are a Leeds girl, aren’t you? I can’t imagine going near vodka and lime now. I suppose it was the 80s equivalent of alcopops…
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I went to secondary school in Leeds but I lived in Birstall. The locals felt closer to Bradford than Leeds. The other drink was Southen Comfort. Looking back on it I’m astonished at how much we could put away as teenagers and not even feel sick.
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It’s wonderful when one’s horizon widens even if one has to leave their hometown. Love this tiptoeing spring. What an amazing haiku to end the Haibun!
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I knew it was Barnsley as soon as I started reading it, and this was great fun to read.
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Those handbags to be stepped over, the teen angst…getting away from small towns opens doors, but not everyone can leave. Very poignant haiku.
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I do not know enough about small towns in UK to know this… but it’s something I recognize too… the closest is probably the town I lived in when I did my military service… and I do remember the girls there… probably the only difference that there is no one smoking inside any longer…
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The fate of these small towns after pit closure… quite depressing.
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It sounds like Scranton, PA, where I did undergraduate studies–the old coal mines closed and the economy tanked. The only entertainment was the bars. My hometown changed, too, for the worse, when the kids discovered drugs. I was long gone then. Sad.
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Excellent!
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This felt so universal……teenagehood. We still go to the bathroom in pairs though. A nice write.
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a very good narrative of a time etched in your mind, a time carefree in the present yet anxious about the future. I love the haiku as it conveyed the emotions of a season so accurately. especially the tiptoe bit. lovely Sarah!
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