perhaps it was silly of me to expect that the graffiti at hosier lane never changes. that they stay there for as long as the spray paints last in spite of melbourne’s crazy weather.

hosier lane had me at hello. the first time i was there, i was blown away. i thought it was amazing how so much color and creativity can exist in what would otherwise have been a drab alleyway. well, save for the masterpieces on the bricks, it is still a drab alleyway, anyway.

but i love the juxtaposition. the visual oxymoron.

in hindsight, hosier lane connected to me at an emotional level, considering my circumstances then. it spoke to me in lines and colors; in a phrase succinctly expressed no other words were needed.

one month later i’d find comfort in that alley again. clearing out some self-inflicted confusion when in my heart, i knew the answer all along. but that’s just me and my unnecessary attempt at real-life poetry. i think about that day and i cringe. if that poem had a title, it would be called “emo in melbourne.”

stepping out of the tiny lane and into the greater expanse of the city on that cold day in may, i resolved to give the boy a chance.

so here we are now. my third visit at hosier lane and it struck me how things are so much different than i remembered it. the romance is lost on me. gone are my favorite graffiti.

but with me was the boy. and that, in itself, was another juxtaposition. =)

but i guess that’s the beauty of hosier lane — the impermanence of its art. time and again, a fresh coat of paint and new masterpieces erase the ones before that. just as they did the ones before them.

it’s so much like love and life, in a sense. as crazy/beautiful as it is.