will we ever share clothes again

will we ever gallop up the stairs
with big elbows and a drink

will we complain about the gum studded streets
and swap tales of our mothers

will we wrestle to music this summer
and compare our white arses,

will we wake up still drunk?

will we get our hands on each other's faces,
will we steal cigarettes,
will we ****,
will we text,
will we worry about each other's coughs?

will we ever swap clothes again?

To be 'old hat' at something
is to know it inside and out,

off by heart.

four weeks ago you pinched my panama
and it looked so good on you,
butterscotch and black

The cat is being poisoned
My toenails are falling off
This house is haunted
And the fear is getting me down*

………..

Two children play with the hospital coffee machine, tearing open teabags and sprinkling the innards into pitchers of milk.
“This is how you tell fortunes.” The little girl says, watching the tea float.
“No it isn’t.” says the boy.
I want to go over and talk to them but my pyjamas have a bleach stain on the crotch that looks like I’ve had a *******. I am afternoon fog. My back is sweating.
I wheel myself over to the window with one of the hospital Bibles tucked between my knees. Inside the back cover someone has written:

THIS BOOK WAS MADE FOR SAVING
AND THAT’S JUST WHAT IT’LL DO
ONE OF THESE DAYS THIS BOOK
IS GONNA SAVE THE LIKES OF YOU

The kids behind me argue about fortunes. For a moment I let my head drop and my eyes close, but
**** **** terror ****
My cat is being poisoned,
And my toenails are falling off

I bury into the memory foam with a
Strange boy's finger up my ****.
Stubby white soldier,
Cherry ****,
Phone off.

Lily- pads wind their way towards the bathroom
(pizza boxes, six pizza boxes)
"skip carefully towards the ****** stash
or else you'll sink...

they're under the sink

...uh, uhhh, come back and

sink your way in"

Welcome to the Bad Life Bingo!
Every hour is the end of the world,
There's nothing to play for
and no time to play it in...

...I am shaking off this dry truth
with a flannel that has seen better days.
My english tan is coming off
and nothing works.

He tries to light a joint in my bed

the zippo strikes three -
click - fzzzz
click - fzzzz
click - fzzzz
and you're out .

There is a deep, rich silence and the bedsheets are as soft as oil.
“What do you think happens when you die?” I ask. “From a purely scientific perspective. Is there any way…?”
Dee rolls his shoulders onto my hands.
“No, Art. I told you. There’s just nothing.”
“But I can’t imagine ‘nothing’.”
“Of course you can. Before you were born – what was there?”
“There was the promise of me.”
“No. There was the risk of you.”
We both laugh.
“There must be something.” I say. “There must be.”
“I hope there’s nothing.” Dee says. “ I can’t think of anything worse than an afterlife. I want peace and quiet. A lifetime is enough. Being alive is such a strange predicament. Knowing everything and knowing nothing.”
I can feel his heart against me. I can feel his heart and smell his skin. I feel us, as we are rocked by the world and breathing together.
And outside is the garden, the wisteria, the white chair, the promise (and the risk) of something, anything, everything, nothing.

Toscar and I barely know one another. We burst into the house like two lions, scrapping, kissing.
       “******* hell. This place is huge.”
I have a desperation. His parka is wet.
       “You’re so cute.” He says as he hauls me upstairs. He unzips my jeans, throwing open doors, trying to find my room.  His hair is biscuity and thick. “You’re so ****. So cute.”

At around three o’clock we sit in the cold garden, smoking. He’s put his parka back on, with the hood up.
       “So, what’s going on with your eye and all?”
“I’m not sure. I have to have an MRI.” I glance over at him. “Maybe I’m dying.”
       “You’re not dying.”
“Maybe I am.”
He exhales a ball of smoke.
“My mum died of motor neurone disease.” He says. “Horrible ******* thing. And there’s a fifty-fifty chance I’ll get it too.” He pauses and fumbles around in his pocket, pulling out a pound coin. He starts flipping the coin a little bit, before putting it back in his pocket. I think he wants to make a point about his chances, but it’s too dark to really see the coin. “I just don’t think about it. Death. There’s no point. I’m alright today, d’y’know what I mean?” There is a silence.
       “My boyfriend died.” I say, eventually.
“Yeah, I know.” He says quietly. “Anthony told me.”
I try to stop myself. I really do. But I start to cry. Toscar doesn’t care. He pulls his white chair over to mine, and he lets me cry and cry and cry.
“I don’t want to be here anymore.” I say, and I’m not sure if I mean here, in the garden, in the house, or here, in the world. It doesn’t matter what I mean, anyway.
       “Hey, mate.” Toscar says, very gently. “You didn’t die.”

He comes into the bedroom and thumps me three times on the shoulder. It’s his way of telling me he’s going to sleep. I reach over in the darkness. His spine is in my hands, his mouth is reluctant, and I’m sleepy. His skin is very cool. The pillows bunch up like a cloud between us. We are Tarot card lover.  I tell him that I want to **** him.
Later on I watch him slink away to the bathroom. He is so beautiful in the light of the doorway with his hand reaching out to guide him - my God, I can hardly stand it.
There is a glow, the bed rocks, I smell soap.