Summer Fruits, by Stuart Russell

Summer Fruits

by Stuart Russell

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1.	Springfield 01:40	lyrics	buy track
I’d only ever picked my nose before picking fruit. I didn’t know it was a thing that siblings did until we did. I remember the car journey hotter than the sun and lush trees flew by their green one with the sky. Cher is on repeat. We arrived at the strawberry fields And are handed a large basket each. Mine scraped the ground, I dragged the earth with me around nature’s Woolworths. Almost every strawberry we picked was eaten, only a few made it into the punnet we paid for. Not enough for jam. At dusk we wound up in a huge maze and cheated, spurred on by grandad who charged through walls of corn to reach the centre. We laughed, celebrating our achievement by finishing the berries. We never returned.
2.	Waterfall 01:53	lyrics	buy track
Three friends with no direction find themselves at the edge of the forest. Led by imagination, they flip flop past the witch’s hut, beyond the haunted school, further into Maspie Den; not a sensible shoe in sight. The sunlight cannot penetrate the magical trees so the group must follow the river blindly, through dark stone tunnels thick with mud and folklore to reach the mighty waterfall. En route, playing tig in the long grass they’re prowling tigers, poachers army crawling on their bellies with the wind, hunting each other for fun. They all won, continued the climb, sweating and scrambling through the forest. They are Indiana Jones, foraging for alien artefacts and for the greatest sticks for the inevitable river race. Upon reaching the waterfall they stare in awe, as water stirs the river and drowns their endless chatter. They forget about the race and their games. This place isn’t pretend at all, forged in reality, It’s incredible; So is their friendship.
3.	Summer Fruits 02:43	lyrics	buy track
We drink juice the flavour: summer fruits. Pink berry-tinted water that reflects my best friends’ room, with its amethyst walls and shelves of crystals that we collect. Complimenting the juice – the sweet taste of wumpa fruits; that we also collect. Then we leave To run the streets again. Days of climbing trees, the big stone logs hide and seek curby. We smell of the outdoors and as the sun makes its leave, so do we. We return to the room with more summer fruits, the strength of the taste matching the strength of our friendship. We are ridiculous; but ourselves. We play the bedside table game, Using shoe boxes to design the most chaotic bedside table set-up for absolutely no fucking reason. We make radio on the old karaoke machine topic of the evening: Starfish; strong opinions about starfish. It’s the laughter I miss, and the Haribo. That interlude between childhood and adolescence; it’s a laugh. Every day I visit those memories and every day the taste of that juice gets weaker. The friendship drifts and those happy memories become happy sad. I’ll keep hold of them though.
4.	Strawberry 01:34	lyrics	buy track
We climb the hill hidden by the forest we scramble towards the sky laughter rises our fresh faces glow red and sweat foams from our skin as we regain ourselves. At the top, looking down on our tiny kingdom, we share chips dreaming of what we’ll do and be. We scream to escape then laugh then lie together on the sun-bleached grass among chip wrappers and love bugs. I glow in his company as the sun sets the Joop! hits me; scents of summer – then, his strawberry lips in the shape of a kiss, are planted on my lips. I savour the nectar of this; my perfect first kiss.
5.	Swallow 02:22	lyrics	buy track
From pulsating fruit comes the juice and your spit sweetens the most bitter of tastes. When you touch me, goosebumps rise from my frozen flesh and each hair stands with anticipation while we writhe in summer rain. It’s night. The only light that guides our hands, our shitty phone screens. We can’t see the rain but we feel it like we feel each other, with intensity. Although we can’t see each other, we know each other. Sort of. I kneel with the worms in the wet forest on the edge of society, hoping you’re not an axe wielding maniac. I’ve no clue what I’m doing. The woods seem to be where all bodies wind up, in blowjobs and in death. It’s the only place to hook up, definitely not safe but nowhere is safe if you’re gay here. A sick thrill to this small existence though, that we live for a moment. We take all the hatred and dick and then die. There’s no forward thought because the future doesn’t exist. There is nothing for me here; but there is dick. You came then I left.
6.	Fruit Fly 01:56	lyrics	buy track
And now we come to the fruit fly who worked hard to destroy me, feeding on me for a year hoping I would rot – but I did not. I was trapped as you infiltrated me, that fear had a rough texture. I feel the wall I was smashed against, the wet wooden beam. I taste the potion you spiked. I feel the tape you bound me with and remember your face, the house where you lived and another fly watching. People don’t enjoy flawed fruit, it’s easy just to bin it. But it’s from that bin that you tossed me in, that I emerge to remind you I survived. You thought I was finished but my peach flesh runs deep and at my core is a stubborn pit that refuses to crumble. I was 14 and I said no.
7.	Meadow 01:30	lyrics	buy track
A meadow, set against pale summer skies surrounded by wildflowers, stretches out from my feet towards the sharp cut of the horizon. The end of this earth. The sky spits on my dehydrated skin the grass, now wet with rain, glitters. I miss this. I am starved of this. I drink it in, as the soil drinks the rain and as I walk through rainbows, the grass squeaks beneath my feet. I hear Summer and fall to my knees to embrace the freshness of the morning. I am stained by the Earth’s nourishment and comforted by the sight and sound of so much. I’m okay. Everything is okay.
8.	Solitary Bee 02:40	lyrics	buy track
I don’t fit this angry shifting landscape; this poisonous plague pit of opinion; and that’s okay. I have no ties to the before, no lore. No friends to play games with anymore. No one to laugh and cry or cry with laughter with. and that stings. But all the amazing things that I am able to do able to be; Make up for my life – the solitary worker bee. The irony, that the wild is safer than the hive, never fails to amuse me. I leave it all behind. All the pain, every threat I endured. I make my own way into the haze of Summers yet to be. Possibility, a vast and endless sea. The waves still knock but I am resilient now. I build my nest on the shore, my beautiful lookout. Where I produce honey, and collect nectar – Money. The wilderness provides for me. I am the queen creator and I create to be free.
9.	Cranberry Fields 01:54	lyrics	buy track
Memories are like cranberries floating in flooded fields. As I wade through them, I notice some are damaged and rot. But I can still cherry pick the best ones and enjoy them. Not only does the water support my own weight it supports every single experience; each moment past and present and I thank it for that. Every summer a trip into fall and before the harvest I throw myself back and just float. Embracing all of myself, all of the fun, fruit and friendship; even the murky decisions have a sort of joy to them. Some of them. Now as my thirtieth summer ends, I remember everything that made me, everything I left behind I give thanks for all of it.

about

A punnet of poetry... From childhood nostalgia to innocence lost, Stuart Russell shares memories of summer and details his experience growing up LGBT+ in a small town in Scotland.

Contains strong language and adult themes, listener discretion is advised.

credits

released July 19, 2021

Artist: Stuart Russell
Composer(s): Stuart Russell; Daniel Baker
Producer: Stuart Russell
Label: Eyebrow Media
Artwork: Madison Grimshaw