brick on the street.
the wind is a wall, you know,
the cars have been watching lately,
when it’s daylight,
the asphalt sticks,
the pathway is quicksand,
the trees sway and listen.

people have the faces of predators,
you can see your own,
paranoid.

why can’t you go to the cinema?
sit in a cafe alone?
they scoff and giggle,
clawed nails covering snorts of delight.

the bricked path is surely a stable one,
unease sets- moulds like
concrete with sugar in,
if the world is a cage,
you’ve carved out a smaller space.
claustrophobic? trapped?
or maybe safe, secure.
you step inside the gate
and remember,
it stopped the wind once.

collecting rainwater in a can, pretending
i am two years ahead in the future
and i’m living it now.
now now now.
impatience, one of my flaws,
maybe sometimes a virtue, well,
anything is a virtue in the right context.
dogs’ teeth, like the old boy
who ground the front four into nothing,
today i was struck with the terrible fear that i’ll be all gums in five years,
should probably brush a little more.

wish i could live a little more,
your second half maybe
exists to create jealousy,
well, i’m not sure,
maybe i’m a jealous person,
i want the traits i have not.
the two, four, five- we skip threes
because nothing comes in threes anymore, and i’m never lucky on the third try,
well i try.
try try try.