Some poems sit with you for years before they are ready to be written. The Stranger I Know began as a rough draft when I was twenty, inspired by a brief friendship with someone (approximately the same age as myself) who captivated me with anecdotes and pictures from the Brighton Teddy Boy nostalgia scene of the late 2010s: a revived subculture I happened to be unaware of at the time. But, as I have always been an old soul at heart, I was deeply intrigued by this individual’s fascination with nostalgia and niche alternative fashion. By day, he was an engineering student with a part-time job in a garage; by night, he was a musician, obsessed with Teddy Boy nostalgia and constantly reinventing himself in a series of eccentric personas: emanating a fascinating contradiction of confidence and insecurity.
The details in this poem are drawn loosely from that friendship. At the time, I wasn’t confident enough in my writing to refine the draft, so it sat untouched for six years. Returning to it now, with more experience and courage in my poetic voice, I’ve honed the piece into its final form, drawing on broader notions of identity, belonging, and one’s sense of self.
At present, the poem is less about any single individual than about the idea of reinvention, the pursuit of identity, and the bittersweet shadows that follow those who are always searching for a new sense of purpose.
The Stranger I Know
The Stranger I know -
Talk to me.
With your Teddy Boy hair,
Your Rockabilly genes.
From fairly generic
You cross the line,
From your mechanic’s shirt by day
To a gold waistcoat
When the curtains lift on the stage after nine.
Vaguely lonely, craving validation
Whatever it is you’re chasing -
You need appreciation.
You said your dad’s velvet suit is where it started -
A hand-me-down from the wedding scene,
From your framed vision of those since departed,
You borrowed it just for prom night.
Now we laugh and you admit it was a bit over the top,
But not to worry -
Once your rock 'n' roll revival is in full swing
A quirky start always adds to the story.
Should I not mention the aspiring artist? -
Who you now say had ‘bad taste’ -
Left you broken-hearted.
Restless in silence since you came home,
Searching through yesterday’s interests,
Sitting alone.
Remember the emo days that long ago faded?
Panda eyed, teary eyed,
Cliche teen phase, so commonplace
You’d think it was rehearsed.
Metal scream and skateboard tricks,
Falling in Reverse.
Moving forward in a shirt and cravat
Stiff hair, straight face
Posing on the bonnet of your dad’s Series 62 Cadillac.
Where to from here?
You know you have direction
There’s not a trick you couldn’t do,
Take apart and rearrange -
Put in gear your Chevrolet 1957.
Play it your way.
Get on stage -
Command attention from the few who care to listen
To the potential slipping away.
Laugh. Be glad. Have another drink -
Do it again, you know the game.
Fading applause expected,
When no one knows your name.
That dream since sweet sixteen,
With candles, hopes,
Ambitions still not yet achieved.
I might have been mistaken
But I remember you said it’s just a phase -
A recent obsession, a fascination -
Reinventing the stranger I know, as do you.
Just like the country lanes and carefree Sundays
You and your Ray-Ban shades become stuck in time,
Left to fade from view.
The stranger I know,
Just looked behind, one too many times.
Logan Darkwoods 