The Rabbit's Riot Theatre Company
Get Mad. Get Brave. Get Inspired.
I’ve been lucky to have made some amazing friends at different stages throughout my life. This poem is about my group of female friends in college.
When we met, we were students
Ready to take on whatever came at us
Some of us more than others – I was by far the most timorous in the world outside of the
cosy house where we would chat and laugh
Or watch Moulin Rouge, or Father Ted
There was always a story to be told by someone
All of us in high spirits, up into the night
Often we’d go out to the Roost
but more often than not, the best part of the night would be the time spent together
pre-drinking in the house
There is paraphenalia common to lots of groups of friends
chocolate, cups of tea, borrowing each other’s clothes
and then there are the distinct happenings in each group
I remember; two of us swimming in the freezing cold Irish sea on a day without sunshine;
having my hair emergency dyed before a night out; pancake parties and plaid parties.
I remember a trip to the zoo where we all stopped and sang ‘Don’t stop believing’ at
an abandoned bandstand and one of us eating half a loaf of white bread, plain, to fill her up
before going out, as it only cost 39cent or thereabouts.
There’s an understanding that I’m attached to
That says when we pass on, our spirit is subsumed back into the universe.
When I think about this, I imagine us carrying on elementally, in the trees, in brambles and briars and birdsong
It leads me to think about the energy that was corralled when we were all in the one room together chatting
Has that energy been dispersed amongst each one of us?;
When the world takes us in separate directions from close friends
Do we hold on to a small part of a shared essence?
Maybe that’s where I get the most daring part of me
Or maybe it was always there,
but amongst these women I was revealed