I am the unnoticed, the unnoticable man:
The man who sat on your right in the morning train:
The man who looked through like a windowpane:
The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting
Morning pipe smoke.
I am the man too busy with a living to live,
Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch:
The man who is patient too long and obeys too much
And wishes too softly and seldom.

I am the man they call the nation's backbone,
Who am boneless - playable castgut, pliable clay:
The Man they label Little lest one day
I dare to grow.

I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices:
I am the graph diagram,
Composite face.

I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining, bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round

Don’t text me when you’re drunk
Don’t even say my name when you’re high
Don’t think about me when you’re with her
Don’t reduce my worth to that

I haven't heard from you in a while
I haven't pulled out your picture and looked at it in ages
I haven't written poetry about you in a long time
I haven't been missing you

You used to be more interested in books than Ecstasy
You used to swear for no reason less
You used to be kinder
You used to be what you aren't anymore

I secretly hope you've looked at my picture once or twice
I secretly hope you'll text me again one day
I secretly hope you miss me just a little bit
I secretly hope that if you ever decide to "miss me" again I have the strength and courage to say "That's nice."

not "I miss you too"

Your eyes were laced
with fatigue induced red lines
that were not unlike
the red lines that laced the world maps I used to obsess over
before I realised
that the world that existed beneath
your fatigue laced eyes
was worth travelling too.

I'll sing of all the ways I miss you
and how this sorrow came to be
the verses, lies I should have whispered
the chorus, truths in harmony.

The melody will break the silence
and call your broken heart to me
to be repaired by love unyielding
to broken hymns in minor key.

i look up at the stars every night
hoping to see you

and i wonder

if you look down on earth every night
and hope to see me too

your hand sleepy
and resting deeply
in mine,
the sound of your voice
pecking like a sparrow,
tickling my heart back to life;
beaming, vast, sunshiny
and unbroken.