Red Sticky Tape

I was sat next to you
But you lived a thousand miles away

We were cramped up
With nowhere to breathe

Locked up
Fucked up
By circumstance

The days were tangled up
In Minutes
Defined by 'the rules'
Whatever they are

Space behind my headboard
Was a war zone
A no go area

The battle, the war
'The Fight'
As you called it
Was lost in 2013

Blinds were pulled down
Darkness ensued
Curtains got torn
Morals confused, rebuked

Then eventually...
Denied
With red sticky tape

Cordoned off by the police
They said it was a murder scene

Sea Change

Today I got up
I brushed my teeth
Everything seemed new

The post was on time
The trees were alive
A cookery programme was on

Darkness disappeared
Possibilities appeared
Life was changing

I was not ready
For the sea change
It was too much
Too soon

Big Wave

I sit in my car in the Northern Quarter

'Big Wave' is on endlessly and it's dark

Past midnight

I listen as she tells me I am weird

How I weird people out all the time

Without realising I am hunched over

Almost hugging the steering wheel

As if to brace

I  continue to listen to her

Listing my faults like a shopping list

Further down the street a man shouts

'I love you, I love you, I love you'

As bottles are dropped and smashed into an industrial size bin

The windows are misted and it's October so it's cold

She says, 'I don't mind it, I like you for being weird'

But it's hard to listen

I don't want to go to these places

Where I sit on the edge of peoples conversations

Feeling awkward and not fitting in

Being told afterwards that people mention how weird I am

I realise now I am hugging the steering wheel

I adjust myself

I make a joke about it and wonder if this is weird

We talk about other things and laugh

But it's late

I want to go home

The door thuds as she leaves the car

STILL

STILL

There's a silence when I breath

Almost the silence of water, the silence of trees

I hear it inside me

A constant hush

My heart beats just

In a tin drum way

A warning to slow down

To  keep at bay those reactions that bubble under my skin

I'm always slow and quite on the outside

Timid she calls me

I remember walking along the lake with her when we first met

The surface of the lake was frozen with a thin layer of ice

She said, "you are just like this lake,

still, calm, cold and unmoving"

She didn't notice complex patterns frosting the ice

Chaotic currents under the surface

She should have realised

Instead, I smiled at her innocence

We watched pink dust sink the day behind clouds

The pylons in the skyline betraying the calm

Now she spends her time worrying all my worries

Fearing my fears

Whilst her own are self contained

Growing old , being alone

Forgetting herself, forgetting me

She takes photographs of her reflection in the mirror

'December 15th 2006'

'January 22nd 2011'

'May 10th 2016'

'Today'

She wants me to remember these moments

All the days we screwed, all the days we didn't

All the days we argued, all the days we didn't

All the days we cried, we never did

It isn't the dates she might forget

Or what happened, or where she was

It's her own self

Her feelings

It's the way I stamp myself across all her memories

Changing them from 'Me' to 'Us'

From 'I' to 'We'

Sometimes she screams

A noise raging from the pit of her belly

Gathering speed and nearly leaving her

But she strangles it in her throat just in case

She breathes her silence

8 HOUR SHIFT

I can't be content
with what i am offered
with the cards i got dealt,

the museum is closed today
rows and rows of empty shelves
live there

replaced by the silver screen
tv dinners
compact, efficient but not wholesome

love is dead, love is missing
joy has been demolished
for fear, for political point scoring

i get sad, more than most
but im not alone
there are thousands like me
with no voice
we abandoned all hope

yes we work the 8 hour shift
with a smile on our faces
but something is not quite right
something is missing

we are beyond help
just listen to Yiruma and dream
it's the only thing there is