In an instant and without a word of warning,

A billion years’ worth of existential glue

Dissipated into the ether

As he took a final breath of our sickly air. 

We’ve been struggling ever since.

The misery caused by humanity’s follies 

Exhausted his everlasting grace

In just a few decades;

A blip on the radar of time. 

We have unhinged the universe now;

That is what we do. 


“You have brought this upon yourselves,” he laments.

Heterochromatic eyes glaze over with grief.

“Please,” we beg,

“Come back to us.”


Our fatal flaw:

Never knowing what we had

Until we killed it with our own hands.


A million civilisations in the cosmos

But we were the most desperate.

Even the savior of all

Cannot save us now. 


We loved him as we love our Mother;

Still we turned a blind eye to his sickness,

Still we let her wither away 

When she had nothing left to offer us.

We watch skyscrapers collapse,

Petrol fires blaze,

Holes being torn into skin

With the ease of a pencil through paper.

We plead for his forgiveness,

With a rotting feeling in our stomachs

Telling us he will never come.

The stars shine differently now,

Dimmed by the pollution of city lights,

Yet still we gather to watch for him.

Still we wait for him to fall to Earth again.

The curve of his mouth
Echoed the movement of yours,
With its subtleties noticed
Only in the light of day.

The edges blurred.
The caffeine in my veins
Turned alcoholic
And I’m tipsy now,
Tearing up letters
And trying to remember
The taste of your name on my tongue.

His dimples arose
And I saw your blue eyes
In his brown eyes,
Some strange transfiguration
Of my memory.

Fiddling with the napkin,
A worry stone to quell
The jittering in your stomach,
To suffer the silences.
You shouldn’t have let me walk away,
Down the cobblestones
And around the corner of the night.

Sober and shaking with regret
For ages and ages
And I spend the last of my money
On a one-way ticket,
Hoping you’ll be sitting
In the same cracked claret-coloured chair,
Waiting.

Maybe I’ll kiss your cheek this time.
I won’t be afraid of the lipstick stain,
Like before.

The rose petals in my cocktail
Somehow found a way
To colour your romantic young lips;
I longed to match them with mine,
Bloom a field of thorned kisses between us.
Between the half pints, the martini, and the free shot,
The rest of your face is a blur
But I cannot forget the right side of those thin lips
Curving upward as you spoke,
As you listened to my stories
About a land far away,
With your blue eyes locked on mine.
I rambled and you smiled.
You couldn’t understand my love for the city,
But you were glad I chose Dublin that night.
You asked questions and I didn’t understand
The implications until
The morning when I was sober.
The more I drank the more I wanted you,
But they closed down the bar
And your friends disappeared
And my mouth grew dry as we spoke.
The last ones in,
I’d lost track of time and we were out on the street.
I waited for you to ask me along
But they took me by the arm
And I slept in the bathtub of my hotel room,
Never knowing more than your name,
Never remembering more than your charming drunken smile
And the heat of your breath on my neck,
Inches away,
But never touching.

I pretend that airports
Are the means to an end,
A new start,
A purgatory for lost souls
Searching for something
Greater than themselves.
Time is not real.
But then I step off the plane
And watch lovers enter
Strong arms at the gate,
See their lips meet,
Watch limbs tangle,
And I drag my suitcase
Along the linoleum,
The broken wheel clicking
With every step.
I look for you,
In every airport
In every city
At every gate
And you’re never there.
My suitcase might as well
Be completely empty.
I have no home
Anywhere in this world
Without you.

You’re social suicide ******* with a neat little bow.
You kiss and tell
In plain view of the world
And the men admire your tenacity.
You don’t pretend to care
So maybe that’s why
You draw me in so effortlessly
With your gangly fingers
And that cross hung limply
Around your neck
With no meaning at all.
I don’t expect more
Than you give;
You don’t give
More than you take.
The cycle repeats
With every moon,
Keeping me up at night
Howling
While I wait for you
And you don’t wait for me
And I never come.
Promises made to myself
That I never keep
Because the tides are rising and falling
But you are always there
In the middle of the sea,
Never changing,
Never growing,
Never feeling anything at all.

This intangible craving
  for something so unattainable
    is little more than a lovely fantasy
      but it'll do for now.
        It goes like this:
Your hair is a whirlwind about your skull
  As the Ayrshire wind batters us.
    Thick sweaters and reluctant smiles.
      Damp wool and lovesick laughter.
A thin sodium layer misted onto our skin,
  Granules of sediment beneath our nails
    And in the fibers of every stitch.
      Thin fingers, exploring uncharted land.
Lukewarm, stale coffee turned cold.
  Cold lips turned warm and wet.
    Secrets whispered, never retold.
      The rain falls down on Scotland's shores
        Again.

The soles of my feet have been cemented
To the same plot of land
For years now.

They have offered me my freedom,
A chance to disappear,
But it’s only a concept, isn’t it?

I can unhinge myself from these walls
If I pay a pretty penny.
I’ve never seen green;
Only red.

A chance to earn
What I should be given
Is never allowed,
Because I can’t earn
That pretty penny
Without paying
A pretty penny.
That’s how this all works.

This is all my fault.

The soles of my feet have been cemented
To the same plot of land
For years now
And I’m sinking
Quickly.