Did it even happen? That month in a distant town. Where
I would be seen squatting from day-to-day at the rat’s
nest found cradled at the summit of that busy street. Then
you called out, a faint breathe resembling my name, barely
heard through the thick haze of mould and cold corners
but you managed to fish me out, reeling in my naive line
with the ease of one falling in love, but that was to
come at some later time so for now you placed me in a
kinder home and let me stay for a while. Have you heard
of the month in that distant town? Could you let them
know that it really happened? Not all towns are friends
with the sea, but this town that we chose was more fond
of the water than most. It gave us beaches to happily sit
upon, and visit from time to time. Piers and vast walkways
to trudge along when the moon came out to greet the great
charcoal sky. Pebbles and joy littered those beaches and
litter was in abundance at all times, but that didn’t
dampen our eyes for they were never concerned with the
town’s scars. Nor with the gaze of others, it was our
world after all, this distant town. Brick, beer and bearded
love filled our evenings, but now that’s just a fleeting
privilege. A social life waits for me there but not the
same one I left behind. Your home sits ideal, waiting for
intimacy and comfort to return but I fear I am no longer
welcome, I dare say I will have to play the mask of friend
to even enter that place again. I’ll have to adopt a new
view of a world I once ruled, but the crown is lost and
I'm stuck in this peasantry mess. And now I'm scared to
return. I will have forgotten that town. For I only truly
knew it through our eyes, which have closed now. I am tired
of trying to open them alone, and I’m slowly going blind
to my old life. You know, I think it happened, everything
I left in that distant town was the truth at some point
but maybe not to the extent I wished. All I know, whether
true or not, that was the happiest time I’ve had. I can
only tell myself it must have been an accident, when my
heart broke so gently but then I remember it was my
choice after all, and what’s a man who doesn’t hold
himself accountable to himself, a man I wouldn't want
to be, and that’s a truth I know for sure, one I am
still chiefly in charge, that is the one thing I can
be happy about, that I am still the man I was before.

Was it a shiver or a dance that split the tea bag in two,
her laughter told him she knew the truth, something
he grievously missed for her smile alone proved
enough for his stewed gaze, but now her laughter
has moved on and he’s left to his memories
of tea bag smiles, now gone.

9 minutes in ****, spent
pleading for rights the world has
failed to give him, but the white man
won't listen as long as he’s on that racist
coloured mission - a bent knee, once a pledge
of loyalty but now an act of atrocity: a snap,
crack and one final bark as a shade of black is
smashed, into the sharp, hard ground of the world
he once loved - so, please don't be silent, pick up
what is left at the pavement, a human life taken,
shackled, name-cuffed to a movement that
should have never been needed, but it now
rises, out of a community shattered,
to defend those lives that
should have always
mattered.