6. The Lover or Student Prince

And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.


Having qualified easily for college, the possibility and means of escape to some hazy notion of freedom opened. The search for self definition was afoot. Always hopeless at self promotion, the Prince could never think of a single hobby/pastime which appealed, had no inkling of a future modus vivendi, while senses were heightened, bombarded with fleeting concepts and pleasures.

A sad angel crossed their path and claimed their heart. Many afternoons in the Undergraduate Library, she would sidle up to the desk and show off her latest scars. Her anorexic chic beguiled. Her disdainful pose of contempt for norms and conventions chimed well with their own. Punk and New Wave had crashed the University’s Senior Common Room and it was fine to be weird and a rebel.

This episode would lead to further future engagement with people who self-harmed, notwithstanding, also, those who had experienced childhood abuse from adult “carers.”