Half convention and half a lie

1. With one thing and another conversation turns to poetry. Colin is searching for something and mentions Dylan Thomas. I have longed to move away, I say. My favourite poem from my teenage years.

2. While he looks for it at his house, at mine, I find my own book and turn to page 53. It's twenty years since I've really looked for it. I can't remember why I tore it out, where it went or who it went to.

3. There's something pretty great about talking about this again, after so long. I so loved this when I was 15. Sometimes your 15 year old self knows best.

4. I used this poem as the basis for a piece of writing when I was studying higher english. Mr Callaghan - one of my all time favourite teachers - was impressed I could tell.

5. I think about that piece of writing a lot, even now twenty years later. For such a long time I have longed to move away, from the hissing of a spent lie and the old seas continual cry. That seems to have ebbed slightly though, just recently.