the wet sheets and stale air,
lingering cigarettes, softness of your
rhythmic breath.
your legs in mine, your heels
on my toes, your head nestled in
the contours of my neck.

here is my place of calm:
your body. the clockwork of it,
how, every couple of minutes, you jostle,
and i squeeze you which sends you back still.
how dead the world is
outside of here. the stars are muted next to you.

it’s your unapologetic zealousness,
flaming confidence. you could be naked on a stage
(which you have) and not blink twice.
blatant disregard of opinion,
drop-kicking them away. the world is yours
and you are eating it whole.

you are brighter than this town.
destined for bigger and better things.
flashing your white smile,
you could charm the gods to your will.
i only hope i can keep up, or, rather,
that you let me.

i.
an ailment of the mind,
incorporeal, a ghost that flits between
worlds, festers and grows —
a thumping tumour.

ii.
sick, but not really sick.
(does it hurt? paracetamol might help).
you are exaggerated and foolish.
count your blessings.

iii.
potent to change reality.
stronger than any mushrooms.
a single thought, the words and the images,
gunslingers to misery.

iv.
hook that reels in,
boding some ominous fate.
fish out of water —
flippity-flop; people sunbathe around.

v.
plodding is what it is.
plodding through a tempest,
freezing, crackled skin,
watching everyone else walking in sun.

vi.
you want to scream but don’t.
you want to explain but don’t.
you let them form their own ideas
and agree. you feed on it.

i.
you evils,
you way back when;
the bud of youth torn open.
voodoo dolls, one for everyone you
know. mine your favourite.
stab the button eyes.
twist the straw torso.
stamp it out with the heel of your foot.
and i: confined for years,
steeped, like tea, in misfortune.
you elude the fates, karma, cosmic intelligence,
and tanged, twenty two months ago, life
thread in a tight knot,
ready to be snipped.

ii.
tar floods the eyes
and spews out like the **** of a spot;
acne-ridden teenager. that’s
all i was. crater-boy.
now i am stupid-boy.
subservient to the waves that jostle,
the spurs of your moods.
a marionette propped up on charles bridge,
forced to wave and smile.
day by day a diminishing, a fading —
a mystical dementia ravages.
people go, but never come, tired and bored.
the slow death far from over.

iii.
rotting but still alive.

i.
the blinds are bars
and the window is a rotating theatre
of people, life, the grind.

ii.
i behind it;
a twisted damsel in distress,
hopscotching around the puddles of my tears.

iii.
disconnect in the age of connectivity.
a broken wire frazzled and burned.
my hair is not long enough to escape.

rattling thunder
pummels the tinny tin can roof
under which you drive
through the swelling swamp-roads.

you say this is england.
i say this is climate change.
snakes emerge from murky water,
the same green as your eyes.

a hiss wobbles through your tar-bones
and your flesh boils to scales.
a fat, emerald python.
eating me whole and clean.

your bleach-bowels sear me.
a hapless, cocooned boy for a devil.
the teenage smile is what beguiled me,
tricked me into your drunken youth.

torn flower pettles
engulf the vastness,
devoid of time and reality,
of the growing distance.

a floral bath
doused in flourescence.
the white lilies
that signify a grave.

your charred corpse,
a bloated bag,
floats in a putrefying stasis.
only half a daisy-boy beauty.

the water fizzles
into acid. the hyacinths wither
into amorphous globules.
gap tooth dissolves.

dream-bones stay long after
he has woken up:
bright, lightweight and silvery.

fused together by memories
and the sleepy recollections of them.
hips joined to ex-lovers and their feathery touchings.

these hollow bones can fly
not on wings, on the rush of nostalgia
high, before a fall.

you talk like a kennedy.
east-coast americana.
salt spits from your
weaponised mouth.

go back to your compound
and lie on the surf
from whence you came.
chunky sweater man.

i’m not your jackie,
nor will i piece your head back
together. your old-world
dreams return to the sea.