Remember standing outside
the Mountain of Clouds
waiting on the bus to arrive,
and thinking:

“How the **** did we get here?”

There’s always a point
where the tree trunk ends
and the branches go on,
no matter how high it reaches.

I'm not sure if I’ve ever told you
this one before,
but a while back
Sentimental Stevie took my hand
in the snug
and confessed his lunacy to me.

The ash built up fast
then dropped to the red sand stone
beneath my suede boots
where I had to admit my age,
finally.

The smoke tastes
like burnt Strawberry
and lingers in the crevasses
of my meridian mouth
before I succumb to the image
in his head.

Anyway,
now we’re one week on
and I’m no further on
with finding out
if I belong,
or if that even matters
when you pull out the map
and lay it across the glovebox,

so I guess
I brought that place up,
that musky Titanium white room
filled with love and doom,
and all things good
because

I'm not dead yet.

When I come home
I like to make myself
a midnight bowl
then lie beneath
the dripping ceiling
where
I am at peace.

My parents think
it’s a strange thing
for someone
to spend their life
in seclusion

behind these walls

but here -
I’m not being questioned,
nor judged.

Spread out on a cloud
and
blowing bigger ones
than the night before,
it is just
a time when people
aren’t knocking at my door,

elation comes and goes.

Once a connection is lost,
they are severed from you
forever;
you can’t light the end of a burnt out match stick,
you can’t burn the bonfire
after it’s been hosed down
the second time.

None of that matters
when you’re half way down the Rabbit hole
watching the patterns
flashing through your mind,
and you just heard
someone promising
in a such genuine tone,
“I’ll always be down this way.”

But
you see the thing is,
I know
better than that now
and
so will you,
in time.

No matter where Nature drags
your rotting bones
it's stored in a safe black box
hidden under the stars,
or in some special place
at the back of your wardrobe
where (you think) no one
can ever go.

The lesson is to
look
before you fall.

To play the blues
before they play you.

Jack rolls black joints
and tells us to
sip them like tea
under the kazeebo tonight.
The sky is covered
in diet Pepsi;
clumsy moon must have spilt it
over the canvass
of the day,
but it’s okay because he says
he’ll buy a new one
when the shops open next,
we know
he always tries his best.

Taylor says it feels
as though
we’ve been transported
to a resort in
the South of Spain.

I take my jacket off.

Chris asks us if he smells
of anything sinister.
I look up from the step
and whisper,
“If they don’t know by now,
then they’re morons
with office jobs,”
we share a laugh and
in that moment,
somehow we forget
that this, and everything else
will come to an end.

I heard you say
across a cloud of smoke
that you hated
February,
is that why you left
on the 18th?
on the 18th hole
just as the course
was coming to a close

I watched you turn around,
walk away
at half past two on that
Thursday,
and as you did
I could see myself smiling
on the phone to my best friend
I could hear myself saying,
"Don't be silly,
I've got nothing to worry about."

With my feet firmly planted
on the freshly sprayed grass
that costs twice my month's wage
to preserve,
I reached out for a club
to batter over your head
but instead discovered my caddy
had gone astray,
and all I could do
was watch you walk away
in that poncey way
you always walked away,

I know you think your something else
but now
I have a handicap
that would put yours to shame any day.

Don't believe me?
Rematch February 18th 2017.

Arsenic sea under my steps
The echoing loud
Too hard to forget.
Peculiar things happened while
Labouring through
This darkened street
Where the monsters sleep.
Hitchock we're done
With your whistling numbers
I need something less daunting tonight
Why don't you
Give me some light.
I'm only passing through,
Just give me some advice.

What way do I go for the rest of my life?

You're a joke
I laugh about every day.
That seems to be the only way
To stop myself from crying
Or setting things on fire.
My friends think they've got the old me back, but she's still recovering from the heart attack.    
Sometimes I pray for a head crash that will knock every beautiful thing you promised out of my nights.  
It never seems to arrive.
I just hope I won't go asking for it some dull hour under severe lights and a dancefloor.
The only comfort seems to be that you are far away in a lonely, bored and unsure state.
I know that you don't think great things of me anymore,
That's why I've finally decided to let you go and forget about the wasted minutes I spent hunched over the *** of my heart ladling too much into your bowl.  
I ought to have known you would get sick of the same taste.

Everyone eventually does in this world.

It rained for three days
before you left.
I had people chatting me up
in bars and cafes
and I rejected them without realising
that I'd need them all
when you were gone
to help fill the void.
2 months on my own
is starting to take its tole;
I miss kissing with a *** in my hand
outside club doors
and running to catch a taxi
so you can take me home.
Now, I'm only smoking
to help me forget
the promises you made
every time you got out of my bed.
I'm making false friends
and pretending I'm cool
without you.                        
But nothing is the same
now that I heard you're with
girls who look nothing like me
and pretending that you're clean.
I'm the only one who could ever
see through you and
that ***** me up somehow,
just knowing there are people
around you
who dont have a clue what
or who you really are.
In my darkest moments I wish you could have stayed
instead of ******* off with art students
who wear costly vintage clothes.
Come round to my door and knock it down with your skinny legs,
I will fall right into your arms screaming:
"never leave, again."
I will pour my heart out,
just for you.
And I wonder if that makes me an angel or a fool?

This one's for you,
my biggest fear.
I don't know how I'm going to
make you love me,
I've never been great
at improvisation.
I'll stand in the rain
for as long as I have to
if you just say
you will accept me.
Things would seem
a whole lot better then.
But I'm certain
nothing could please you
so I'll just have to sink
deep
beneath
the waves of the world,
before I've worn out more than I own.

There are hundreds of people
I pass every day
they all have a name, a life, a place.
I sit amoung them, half asleep
on the 5 to 8 train -
they all seem the same.

So, isn't it a wonder
that he should stumble into my world
out of all those strangers
who come in and out of my timeline each day.

Isn't it fortunate
how so many aspects of him are like me.
I could go on caring for him
when the moon falls from the sky
and no one can sleep anymore
because of the constant daylight.

I will be there for him when the universe
turns its back and he is left
searching for somewhere
he can spill his guts.
I'm that secret place he can go
whenever tragedy occurs.

I went down there
To feel closer to you
Only to be surrounded
By strangers.
Then, I began to notice
I was now one of them
To myself.
So I knock back the *****
In a futile attempt to forget
How much I crave you intensely.

Moved around lifelessly
To familair tunes
With some phony guy
Trying to cut through
My barbed wire.

All I can think of is you,
On this smoke infested
Blindingly-lit dance floor,
Where we once lost control
Endlessly.

There is a connection
That will always remain
Until I am rotting beneath.
I want to scream
Your name out to everyone
I meet,
Tell them I'm bleeding
From head to toe
Without you kissing my soul.

No one knows my pain on the 12 o'clock train
When Sunday welcomes Monday with sad eyes
All the drunks stumble down the platform
Searching for the lights
And the open sign
Desperate to hit the pillow
And get some shut eye.
Nobody here knows what it's like,
The intensity I feel when we're together and when you're out of sight;
The difficulty to let you step onto that vehicle
Which leads you back by their side
And away from mine.
They could try,
but they could never know
how much my heart sinks below the depths of the Med
When you float away
And I am left drowning
Instead.

What's your lover done to you
Now that your worlds' are changing
She's beating up your head
Baby, where have you gone?
This just isn't you, I need you to know.

And I wonder if that's a good enough excuse
To trample on something we've nourished for so long
To destroy my stems on and on
Or if there's any excuse at all.
Oh, here we go again, here we go...

No one matches up to your dynamite
No matter what you believe
You're the only true friend
I've not got by my side these days
You know what I'm like:
Cynical, sarcastic, sometimes a little contrite
But I need you to know, this isn't my half anymore.
Just show me a little respect before you bring the tyrant around to my door...
Again...

I wonder if there's an excuse
For you to tear my limbs apart
If there's one for bringing me down
Lying on the ground,
Water dripping from my sides
While the world continues to turn.
I don't want to be the one, don't want to feel this hurt -
No excuses, no where to hide.
I need her back by my side, before the night implodes and leaves me alone.
Leaves me dry, again.

Yesterday you spoke the truth
He's been praying to hear
Since he first laid eyes on you.
And it all feels so close
Now that he's only got a few miles left
On this inflating road.

We've got a while left
Before the woman calls out:
"You've reached your destination, park the vehicle to your right."
That's when it will have arrived,
The time of your life.

Keep your eyes focused,
Notice the sunshine in her hair.
The way it feels
Every time she is near,
The wonder rising as she speaks.
How is it that nothing has ever felt this real?
Now that she has turned the wheel.

The tyrant stands
Up against the club door
A bulky guy
200 pounds and only six feet tall.
I approach him, done up to a tee,
He asks my age and I hand over my fake ID.
Luckily it's raining,
So he can't see my anxious look from underneath the dark umbrella.
He nods me through
And with disbelief I step into the Promise Land I have always strived to reach.
Beautiful faces greet me
On the other end,
They stamp my hand and tell me to enjoy my weekend.
We sit on stalls beside the bar and after the first few drinks
I'm positive my judgement
Will be marred.

After the first act,
I head for another Morgans and coke
Standing by the decks the lead singer tells me a joke.
A ginger head with a West End vibe,
Said I very nearly made his night when I told him his sound seemed fresh yet familiar to me.
But he left too soon,
As they often do.

The music plays on
And I'm still trying
To forget about you.

One by one
The boys line up.
A full night planned
Spoiling their livers
Under strobe lights.

Across the platform
The ticket man waits
To catch the nine o'clock
Back to his bed,
Before the working day starts again.

They talk about where they're headed through town -
I wonder if they'll find true love
Or just a kiss and a shove
Near by the bar stools tonight.

The tannoy sounds,
The robot woman speaks,
Doors part and revert back.
I wish you were coming with me.

I hate it when you don't like me
For a minute or two
Noticed it once from the distance in your eyes
That you don't love me,
Not the way you used to.

I watched from the pier
As they struggled to see
The shore from here.
I turned away as they sank
Under the waves of doubt
And out of sight.

It was blue, not the sky,
But you.
Yes, everything was turning into sadness
While I was looking at the view.
Couldn't stop it if I tried
Couldn't lift my arm
To flag down help.

Maybe I'll regret it someday,
But not right now.

If you weren't here to hold my hand
If you weren't around to help me understand
I'd wander, an empty vessel, through this so-called equilibrium
I would know this place as dark and lifeless
Where is beauty without you to name it?
Without us there, side by side, to claim it?
I can't find the limit if you're not on my wavelength
I just can't dare myself to dare
Without my soul.

I need you to know
Before you enter this strange, new section
They have built for you
That I am at your feet, far below your calves,
Licking the ground
You stand on.
Always
Worshiping you
(Especially from a far).

Although I would sell my cells to be closer
I must remain within the clouds
Until next Spring.
And it is there, we will finally blossom, again and again.

Until they force us to return to our caves
Until we must go back, my friend.