mornings I get up
early and watch
the night sail
into a water
bucket so I
can wash
over in
moonshine.

We're on a train
in London's subways
and everyone stands
with a dead-eye peer
down the carriage, so
please, hold my hand.

They're all like apes,
hung on bamboo poles
and strung vine-straps,
hunkered over the small
space I have to myself, so
please, hold my hand.

I think you've become
just like them, Daddy;
a ringed-eyed orangutan
or narrow-staring lemur.
You've become much less
human it scares me, so
*please, let go of my hand.

Coming home from a fair,
cusped between your lap
a globe of darting eyes,
your hands rested atop
the thin film of a world
as you endlessly peer in.
Are you scrying over
your future career?

Here a tungsten bulbous
body, a chunk of flame,
swills itself in spins
and mindless dances,
as you think you could
be so careless like them
to live hazily in a framed
bubble of treasured youth,

fed by some divine fate
looking over you. Golden
scales make your skin,
binds you as if you were
a chocolate in a wrapper
for people to circus over–
every flicker being edible.
Or maybe you're like

those tinned peach slices,
posing in a cage for all  
as a marvel to feast with
until you end up rotting,
there in your tomb-space,
muttering an open mouth,
“help me” before they serve
you up on a silver-lined dish.

I assure you, you'll forget
these childish thoughts
of aspirations and dreams
sooner than you think:
no matter how much
you think they want you,
I'll bet they'll let yourself
drown in coming weeks.

Dey real kewl. Dey
selfie skool. Dey

glow goonz. Dey
PC geeks. Dey

luv Jay-Z. Dey
RT #JK. Dey

tan tangaz. Dey
pRT bangaz. Dey

dwn danger. Dey
jack jäger. Dey

dbl dip. Dey
do trip. Dey

l%k weL 7k. Dey
die s%n, LOL innit.

The first pair of shoes you wore were black,
velcro straps sat atop your pair of dollies
to make it easier to put them on for the park.
They were meant to be smart, but you laughed
as you wore them against the ground so free
as dad slung the swings, smiling at his child.

Our mum told me I was a creative child:
I didn't like to wear anything black. Red
suited me in how I stood in puddles, free
in indifference to how brown my wellies
became. If I was asked why, I'd shout,
“I'm pretending we're all at the seaside.”

From there we made our way to beaches,
where the wind was crisp and the children
we could see around us acclaimed screams
of emphatic joy at how the sea was so blue
and big. We had to wear pairs of sandals
when we went, but being barefoot felt free.

All that time we had at being young and free
soon went with the summer ending in school,
the arrival of my freshly polished black boots
was identical to almost every other child's-
a lather of paint dripping over in mud yellows
proved who I was with a mother's groan,

and this wasn't the only time she wailed.
As we grew older and wanted to be free,
my sister started to experiment with pink
highlights in her hair as I visited clubs
with fake ID. We were adults with childish
personalities in how I wore my Docs

like a religion for feet, my sibling in high heels
that you could hear in Sunday morning claps.
The arguments broke out: she wanted a child,
mother saying was too young, needed to free
herself from lazy culture and find a workplace.
I'd never seen both their faces so gushed red,

just like the red richness of those wellies
I had worn in the park. I pipe up and say,
“The best freedom is our time as children.”

My heart leaps up when I behold*
a skinny-lit vein split even the sky
and I am held, scared as a child,
by the wonder of its roar, my cry's
like that of a lint quietly set alight
in the large of the pitch-dark night.

I would not move from the bed
and yet, I cannot help but stare
through curtains like a coward,
pared apart by curiosity to where
I wish to slide open the window
and see what the sky did sow.

The Child is son to the mother,
and should he ever need forget
he only need look to a shatter
in the sky. The crash on his head
that follows goads, “You know
where your father goes to crow.”

When we grow older
and friendship blooms,
let that golden ring be
a shade of evergreen
and then we can say
"We didn't make us,
we were made for us."