An atrophic fold in the waist -
A victim of Consumption.
An entropic mind is a waste,
And wasting away alone, I lie still
Over the sheets, naked.
The dystrophic limbs,
pins and needles and numb lips,
All the lonely night can be is the stave-off of sleep
And the starving of self -
From my eyes my spirit leaps,
But tonight, time is set, and fate is set,
And my face is set for spirit’s rest.

Flowing in the glow of coastal lights
Shining from wan houses
Is a thought,

Flickering and incomplete, whipping through my mind
Like locks of hair in the wind, flailing
Past my blinking eye-lids.

Fleeting like a whistled tune composed unconsciously before
Morning tea, a bleary transient distraction,
So sweet and simple. And then forgotten.

Flowing in the glow of passing headlights
Is a thought and nothing more,
But lingering…

Floating on the surface
It is love.

We could have gone to lunch today,
We could have talked a while.
You could have explained the pain away.
And I could have made you smile,
because it would all be alright.

You should have come to see me
I would have made things right.
Could have, should have, would have,
So close and yet so far.
Now we're both alone tonight...

*But I have your guitar.

It should be you,
Inescapably,
Who walks with me at night through
Empty country lanes,
Shouting and screaming into the sky,
Distressing doddery old men,
And quiet little kids,
Who, sleeping in warm and glowing cottages, will know us,
Transitory,
Burning, Flickering.

It should be you who
Squeals with laughter
Down nostalgic pathways in the dark
By the playground.
And sliding, spinning, flying,
Like sweet precious things in the moonlight.
Pale skin fluorescent,
Eyes shining and full-toothed smiles
Gleaming,
Young and bright.

It should be you,
Surely,
Who runs with me on
Pale, white, wet sands.
Hearts pumping and blood racing,
Coursing through our veins and
Now down and rolling in the reeds,
Tussle, fight and wrestle
Kicking up sand to the moon,
Floating, falling.

It should
Be you,
Who perching on a rock towards the sea,
With foreheads met and hair whipping
In the wind,
Who tilts your head and takes on red lip against
Red lip
And eternally and endlessly
That night would have been
Ours.

To me she is a name and an image,
the moral to my good intentions,
A face to a feeling of my own invention.
She's a lingering lie in the back of my mind.

Fingers and lips stand highlighted
as ghost-like etchings in my abbreviated memory.
Romanticised moments of your hip-bones tremoring
on Winter nights, alone and together in the dark.

Our long lasting days in-doors
played out like "the way things ought to be",
with the most perfect view of the movie
through faded strands of hair

These days, your girls make you up unfamiliar,
Indian ink applied over the original sketch,
the shivering girl brought down to match,
a floating feather dipped in black and
made part of a Hot Topic handbag.

And even now I wonder if the dripping wet girl
with the stiff shutter smile
ever even existed, at least,
the drunken emo kid staggering on the cobbles whispers rumours
she was mown down by telltale scripted kisses and silent exchanges.

So she remains a name and an image,
a memorial for better or worse,
an epitaph that eases the hurt,
the difficult first album of my heart

She is an unknown
and she knows,
It's just how she lives life
getting by,
no-one sees beyond glass eyes
and saccharine smiles

I am a gorge full of words
and words spill,
like gallons of oil
filling vast areas
till she drowns in the hysteria
of this week's epiphany

She can't remain silent
and silence breaks
those beautiful glass eyes shatter
into tears...
And
we just
die.