I see her there from across the building,
Hair covering her purple, tired eyes.
Her mind is not here, but deeply musing,
And my "Hello!" makes her jump with surprise.

I sit, and she quickly masks her writings,
Believing I can't see her quick mind shut.
But as we talk, I see she's still thinking;
I ask her what she wrote on the lined page. But

She tells me not. I found out later though;
About the fights with her 'loving' boyfriend;
The 'caring' family, whose care they never show;
And the school that's making her lose her wits.
Gradually, her mind is turning to dough.
She thinks no one cares. Little does she know...

1.

In alleyways and docklands I wander
aimlessly with purpose as reels whir
forward, back, reverse, and repeat.

I walk endlessly for miles;
day to night and back again,
listening to a tape replete
with rhythms racking my mind.

2.

In coffee shops and
book shops and music
halls and taverns my
ears hear not the shrill
screeches and squeals of
my fellow man but

Analogue
sounds of an
instrumental played

By one in
some sort of
ethereal plane,

A place that
seems both
familiar and strange;

I shall search
for this place
the rest of my days.

3.

My hair, longer now, falls free
in front of my sunglasses
to ensure my vision is
doubly impaired.

My jacket whips in the storm,
as does my open striped shirt,
but my cravat holds back the
chill in the air.

I’ve felt far too much by now
to make some futile attempt
to hold back the wild winds or
compose myself.

4.

The melodies slow down.
Notes I don’t recognise.
The reels come to a stop;
the batteries have died.

The rhythms flee my mind.
At long last I’m released.
My walk’s now at its end;
must have something to eat.

I saw her in town yesterday,
She crossed the hill o’er the brae.
She didn’t see me, or so she played;
‘Twas only her son did look my way.

A young man with eyes so blue,
With wavy hair and ginger too.
Often time folks wondered why,
He never had her husbands eyes.

Youth's last breath is upon me,
And I can hear the bell toll;
I am alone in the house;
I stare blankly at the wall.
I have a whirlpool of thoughts
Which just will not leave me be.
I look around my bedroom;
Comics, posters, clothes, books. Me.
Eighteen years in the making,
A lifetime of memories,
Mistakes. The thought's quite humbling.
I have a box of old toys;
Guns, trucks, swords. All forgotten.
The days of childish games? Over.
Of repressed hopes, dreams? Begun.
I'll go to school tomorrow
And nothing will have changed.
But it will all be different.

In person this would be much better,
But instead I write this dreadful letter;
We likely won’t cross paths again.
I’m part glad, and part in pain.
My love for you is too intense,
I’ll no longer wait upon the fence;
I must go, and indeed I’m gone.
I hope for you I’ll cease to long.

What is this feeling?
This desire to create?
Why won't it go away?

No matter how hard I work
Or how hard I don't,
It assaults me every night.

In every lonely moment,
On every stroll it's with me.
In every dream it haunts me.

Why can't I create beauty?
I'm told it's in here somewhere,
Locked up, locked away.

How do I free it?
Even when I write this I know it's boring, self righteous;

How do I free myself?
How do I sate this feeling.

Should've been mine. Always something; someone.
Lonely already, at only eighteen.
How can someone so young be so bitter?
So few memories - so many regrets.

Scrolling through Facebook, Born to Run in my ears,
My friends celebrate that they're in the clear;
The beginning of their career.

There's no Wendy running with me, but that's ok.
She'd only get in my way.

Picking my life I jumped the gun. In bed at one for a bus at half five;
"The body is dead but the spirit is alive!"

Trying to read my scripts on the bus, fighting open my eyes.
Won't be back for a while, so mother's last words; sweet goodbyes.

Stepping off the bus, my baggage is heavy; the suitcase too.
My body is worn, my jacket is torn, and there's rain in my shoe.

Wendy. Where are you?

When one dips their bread
into the sauces and juices
that remain on the plate after a meal,
Italians call this ‘Scarpetta’;

A practice employed when a dish
is so rich, so deep with flavour and emotion,
the diner feels compelled to consume
every drop, every morsel.

Sampling this, one of life’s
most essential and delicate joys,
warrants such devotion, such adoration.
A love supreme is ‘Scarpetta’;

It is the only way I can
describe my desire for you.
I want to drink deep at your well,
become lost in the ritual.

I remember how,
stumbling back from some awful café that
wanted nothing to do with us, arm in
arm in drunken Bohemia, you cried.

Cried about your family, how you
left them behind beyond the sea;
your relentless insistence that you were
a bad sister, a worse child.

I refused to accept it.
You fell asleep in the bathtub that night.

2. I remember how,
during those soirées, when you leaned across
my lap, arm on my knee, making benign conversation with those at our table.

How natural it came to us, the ease
with which you fell about me,
even when, then, I was with another;
we never addressed that though.

We took a car home that night.
I couldn’t stay with you, nor with her.

3. I remember how,
alone as we were one winter morning,
you lay down all sullen, made yourself small, lamenting the cold dark day before us.

You meekly refused when I offered, but
when I draped you regardless
in my long sheepskin coat, you pulled the fur right round your body for warmth.

Then in silence you watched me.
Playing piano, basking in your gaze.

Wait 'til a blue moon stands against a blue sky,
And the roar of the cars and wind going by
Makes the edge of town feel like the edge of the world,
Only then, will I listen to your complaints of loneliness.