Wide smiles swinging
Amid the automated bodies;
A dance amongst friends
- We're having the greatest time.
As they ask, you whisper:
Thanks, I'm fine.

Perverted eyes undoing my words
******* my thoughts
Unravelling my meaning.
Provocitively I dance on the page
Searching for your validation
.
What did you find?

My mind is filled with the chaotic ramblings
Of a wanton fool
Obsessed with bulldozing reality
My thoughts rewinding and replaying and repeating
The unfixable concepts that are brought on by unfulfillment
Begging for sneak peaks of an invisible future
And road maps to moments now past.
Searching for solutions in the here and now
When the here and now is just imagination.
.
The rejection of acceptance fuels
An unreasonable mind
That prefers fantasy to non-fiction

There's the exit door
Handle-less

Insects at dusk
Fidget in the corn
I stare across the ears
At the stillness.
- The momentary peace -
Composure, marred only
By the thump of my heart

The birds and the trees
The hum of fields
Heat lines on corn
They're never enough.

Thick paint on paper
Strumming guitar strings
Dances at dusk
They're never enough

Toes on sand
Stares at the horizon
Floating in the abyss

Humdrum routines
With boundary lines
Leaning at the edge
The voices in my head
Whisper "it's just not enough"

Leaning into the vacuum
That pulls my mind in two
I dangle here
Out of choice
Stifling my vocal chords
With thoughts of you.

Allowing the dense waves
That cause my desolation
I let them seep
Within my veins
Beating away glimmers
With hapless temptation.

My control quickly turns me  
From convivial chatter  
To hapless conundrums  
And historic fantasies.  
My phased out eyes  
Are listening without listening  
Present thoughts  
Dissolve into ‘what ifs’ and ‘when’s’ and ‘who’s’  
You speak at me, unaware. I smile.  

The control clicks refresh    
Conceptualising my lack of attention  
My inside voice yelling ‘listen!’  
Your lips are shapes I could paint  
Look for the formations  
In the highlights and shadows  
The pinks of the turned corner of the mouth.  
I’m listening. I am.  

Lips oscillating sounds  
I can hear the words  
Dancing on walls and windows and me  
Structured dialect  
Deep from the diaphragm  
Daring my standard and generic return.  
  
My control snaps its fingers  
To take my cue  
Because you’re laughing  
And looking  
Eyes asking…  
So I laugh in return.

The memory of you floats in
Suffocating my thoughts
With happy memories
Long since past.

Once, our hearts beat in time
Our smiles, our giggles.
Innocent in ignorance
Nestled in your room.

Now the distance echoes
It’s hollow lonely sound.
Time and space
My heart beats alone.

Nostalgia is
The laughter down the rec
As we poured beer
And did milk shots

Nostalgia is
The camp fires
The boys added hairspray to
And panicked

Nostalgia is
Your arm around my shoulder
Protective and proud
And very nervous

Nostalgia is
The Daisy chains
And gossip of
Who kissed who

Nostalgia is
The innocence of
Running wild in fields
Till the sun came up

Nostalgia is
Our beating hearts
Under the duvet
Hoping your brother didn’t hear

Nostalgia is
Knowing it’s just a memory
No longer to be
Repeated

Nostalgia is
Looking at old photos
With a half smile
And chest ache

Sometimes I touch upon
The rippled waves
And fresh salt smell.
Careless and free I swim
In the blue lagoons
Listening to the hum of a busy earth
That passes too fast around me.
Sometimes I feel the sun
Its warmth pricking against my skin
Reminding me to breathe spring in.

You seem to ignore
The swollen air
That floods my lungs tonight
.
There's a heavy barrier -
An ocean reef -
That I pick at with my fingers
.
My tongue trips
On uneasy words to say
Hold me here
And we will pretend
That we are all okay

Come - Brave this slow dance
Shuffle slowly to the beat
.
Long are the days
Of high powered jazz
Smiles and trumpet bands
Of tiptoe dancing
Over the concrete rooftops
.
You make your own music now
Listen to yourself
Try to dance in time
Try hard not to fall

Humming silent calmness
The gentle breeze over empty fields
Birds biting their tongues
Stillness in turmoil

Hateful deafening calm
Breath screaming into the wind
Feet covered by the dust coated earth
Uncomfortable by the peace

Without a compass
The starling flew
To a renewed lease of life
.
Dragging wounded memories
Convoluted through time

Morning mildew
Soaks my toes
Susseration
          cloaks the fields
We smile
Giddy on memories
From the night before.

This silly little poem
          Gives flight to silly wings
                        I soar into the distance
A chain trailing at my feet
.
They tied me to the lighthouse
                  It's beam searching the footwall
My pen begins to waiver
.
The bird begins to fall
.
Near the rocks I'll stay
Crowing to the abyss
          Calling with my heart
And hear the echo fly offbeat
.
And so my poem waits
Without a place to go
Patiently I'm caged
.
Until the raven
                 breaks down walls.

Alone, I walk with you
Your breath on my ear
The breeze at my back.
.
My tongue, stripped of eloquence
Hears only you
As I try to force words
Into existence
.
The rooks are in the trees
Their hyena laughs
Whisper in my mind
Waiting to throw me out
.
Silent to the world
I hear only you.