Plain Songs from Tranquillity Base

[Knot]

.

Hi TqB.

If the intended audience is still the 'named individuals' then I'm not sure how much useful critiquing will be (you're referencing things no reader but those can have any knowledge of, or a realistic expectation of having such knowledge), and I don't think, as things stand, you manage to reconcile 'named individuals' with (a more general) coming of age story.

I do find the idea appealing (snapshots after forty years) but I don't think this lets readers in.

Why not, as an exercise (if nothing else) rework one so that it is open to the reader?

I'd suggest starting here

I know I wasn’t much of a Faust

and you tried to warn me:

I wrote “tetrahedonism” on the whiteboard.

You defined it as “adoration of toxicity”.

This is funny, conversational and relatable ... then it drops off a cliff of incomprehensibility (OK, I exaggerate a bit.)

The time I spent with you seems lost,

it’s the times apart I remember.

fter you said “that stuff is like truth serum”

I took the acid without you

and you were hurt.

I worshipped words when I wasn’t at your feet.

I guess Loris was right, I was a lapdog.

And this works, more or less (bar the typo on line 3, 'after' typically starts with an 'a')

until we get to Loris and the Tranquility Base lines (which seem intrusive rather than helpful).

Tell this/these story/stories as if to a stranger, and in a way that suggests you want them to be understood ... or not

Best, Knot

.