The notebook is full, tea turned cold.
State of satisfaction without completion,
no itch to scratch,
no craving to amuse on;
the binge has abated for now.

Fragmented selves have presented as me,
adjusting hair in the faces of strangers,
a drink in hand,
elephants in the room;
none of them relate to me.

Naturally gummed papers strew the desk,
audio jacks and water stained notes.
This is entropy,
this pile of laundry;
the European map, made in China.

Going crazy is an ongoing process, friend.
It takes a lifetime to master
the Bojangles walk,
the flat-capped freedom;
a filthy soldier's limp.

I am finding my place amongst the misfits.
The world behind a blast-screen,
no invested belief,
no disease left to treat,
staying in for the evening,

staying in for the week.

I want to be loved for one night,
then I shall be content in isolation,
comfortable in the lack of weight
on the other side of the bed.

One night, to be kissed brand-new
by foreign lips; a familiar fear
as she leaves her dress on the chair,
and our inhibitions on the floor.

Absence of physical touch, heard words;
no tangible proof I exist, or should exist
at all. I miss the fatigue. Brief sensation,
some energy - our collective heat;

the way we sweat beneath the sheets.
The way you need to call out to me.
I have not heard my name in weeks.

I want to be loved for one night,
then I can return to pollute these pages
with something beyond conjecture,
something worth holding on to.

here's how it happens
the morning after
you reach into the drawer
where the your t-shirts live
to find it austere
you'll shrug because
you're still drunk
& you can't remember
when last it was
that you had something wet
or how long it's been
since you made the floorboards blush
or why the carpet is upset
who wouldn't be
the contents to the upended ashtray
strewn around the apartment
resemble the aftermath
of the smallest war
to ever take place in norfolk
some midnight thief
must've made off with the lighter
because it isn't in
any of your favorite spots
maybe you chucked it
along with a hundred other things
that make noise when they land
in the neighbors yard
you won't remember putting
the refrigerator's belongings
in the bathtub
or scrawling a buzzard
on the bedroom door
but then again who would
you'll pretend it's spring again
before putting on your winter coat
to go out front with a cigarette
in your mouth
you'll hope for a passing stranger
to *** a light from
or drag yourself to the corner
with couch cushion change
to buy a new lighter
and on your way
you won't bother looking back
this is just another day
on eggshells for no reason
another november
choking on birthday candles
on your way home
you step over beer cans
the kind you fell in love with
and wonder who
had the last laugh last night
or if anyone said a word at all
it might've been another
moment of clarity
it might have been some idiot savant
any adjective that feels like home
anything that keeps you thirsty

Don't give yourself to points of misery
every time the die doesn't fall your way,
for tomorrow could be the day you wake
to all of the outcomes in the right place.

I have seen it for myself, my dear friend,
the way days drag on but you have no time
to find a conclusion, to find a reason
as to why you even woke up at all.

But the day will come when fear has no hold,
only loose ties to old loves and old selves.
You can learn to count your blessings amongst
all of the wreckage of your misfortune.

You will find yourself amongst lost pieces.
You will finally see all that you've done.
You are noticed my friend, and always loved.
The day will come when you see it for yourself.

I remember all of the stupid things.
The gap in my first love's fringe
that appeared only when she was flustered,
or torn between *** and G-d.
The nursery teacher who resembled
Jane Goodall and sat with me
whilst my hayfever was too potent
to play out in the sun.

I remember the exuberance of heat
on the concrete slabs in my first back garden.
How my mother would take
boiling water to the empires of ants
that would find life in the cracks
and crevices between my footfalls.
I remember how silent they were
through oppression and death.

I remember my first sight of the ocean.
How serene it looked in the distance,
how unforgiving and cold it was
once I threw my whole weight into it.
The shivering donkeys on the beach,
agitated by the ice-cream crowds;
the man who handled snakes for a living
and persuaded me to touch a killer.

I remember my first guitar
and how I stared at it helplessly
for two hours, like a teenage boy
on his first sight of a ******.
The first sad song to deliver a feeling
never experienced, but communicated;
how adults failed to answer the questions
that music gave forth effortlessly.

I remember when you started leaving
kisses at the end of your messages,
the formulaic gaps in time
before I would hear from you again;
your costume of nonchalance.
The way you appeared in the wasteland hours,
playing the therapist with your kind words
and history of neurosis.

I remember the sheet of plastic
that shielded me from the rain as a child,
the rubber wheels of my carriage
buckling through puddles and gaps;
the first exposure to nature's lullaby,
as I fall asleep through storm and traffic.
I remember how easily sleep once came,
and how I resisted it all the same.

I remember my recurring nightmare.
A big red button and the doors of hell;
some spectre of infinite density
that caterwauled for the destruction
of all things human, all things new.
The way my mother's arms were infallible,
the priest's glare, omniscient;
the revolting concept of a cigarette.

I remember all of the useless things.
The rings around my grandfather's eyes
on the only occasion I saw him cry.
Kissing Rebecca on the lips,
cementing our love with tree sap
and the promise of an endless summer.
I remember the first time I felt sad
without having a reason to be so.

I remember the shine of the room
when I took pills for the first time;
the incorrigible thirst for water
and the racing confessions that followed.
I remember how it felt,
the first time I trapped someone in a poem;
how easy it was to forget them
once reduced to words and half-truths.

I am humble in my love
and patient in desire,
prepared to submit old selves
to an archived sacrifice
upon your new-age pyre.

Memories turn to fertile ash
and Eden forces a bloom,
with brand new eyes and cheap red wine,
I could crack the shell
to my sun-starved tomb.

These hands have been empty
and turned up to the sky
in some anxious bid for lonesome calm;
a fettered attempt for higher states,
and a fading, sober lullaby.

O come fill them up
with something I can hold,
no dream of love but love itself;
beyond the snare of death
and all of the stories we have been told.

Someday,
when the weeds are
growing all around me,
I will bury you in dirt
and then choose the words
that will act
as a cold-reading pacifier
for the crowds
who thought they knew you.

Maybe
you thought I would
be the first to go;
a near-certain bet
for the first to our death,
only for me to find youth
in my old age,
hitting form at the after-party,
just as everyone else
is looking for sleep.

Sweetheart,
I learned to stretch out
the hours of retirement
in a posture that can be sustained;
beyond mood shifts
and weather patterns,
to a place in which
I welcome the rain.
The allotment is flourishing,
my unsheathed Vishuddha.

Still,
**** my hippie fantasies
if I cannot hear your voice.

You fenced off your eyes
with a charcoal black,
then stranded in snow
and an endless depression,
you painted your death-mask
in venetian ceruse,
hoping that it would be enough
to appease your critics;
to keep away from the sun,
to slip through the seams of time,
and to a place where
the evenings do not seem so long.

You gave your sanity
to a useless drug
and kept your identity
to the picture
within his wallet.
I hope you know your bravery is noticed.
I hope that for once
you can find peace
amongst this constant state of war.