I should have let go sooner.
When there was no lead in my limbs
Or loneliness in my bones.
When it didn’t take the smell of coffee
Or jazz playing softly on the radio
To make me ache for you.
To make each morning
Useless, endless.
I swear the sun, she aches for you.

Oh God, I think I’m gone.
I’m over and under it all
Wrung through
Crossed out
Scribbled in
Crumpled up
Stamped down
Twisted round
And hopelessly unravelled.
I’m tired and sad with it all.
Oh God, I think I’m gone.

And it hurts.
Because when I see you
And you turn to look at me
I know you’re thinking
I’m not anything
You thought I might be.

I don't quite remember that
Pretty projection or dubious construction.
The dream that kissed with tangible lips

I cannot elicit
A lazy shape of limbs
Sprawled across threadbare blankets.
Warm hearts and cold feet.

Bookshops piled to the rafters;
Places of whispered exchanges
And smiling, arm through arm.

I can't conjure up
The taste and stain of cheap red wine,
A tongue that laughed and sung  
To Louis Armstrong, on the radio.

In cold Septembers
And aching Decembers,
Left to my reckless imagination...
I wish that I couldn’t remember.

If I could only get to sleep at night
Without counting every second
As wasted without you.

Stop chasing car-lights
Around the darkened walls
Until the morning comes.

If I could only sleep,
And dream of sleeping next to you.

Sleep, not I.
My dreams ache,
Pressing palms to my temples
Whispering sweet nothings, tender promises
I keep them caged.
Eyelids flickering, shaking, pleading
As blood in my veins crawls towards my staggering heart.  
Tears and itches and too hot, too cold
Sheets of moonlight stifling me
Rasping breaths and pleading, stay with me!
But sleep?
Not I.

I don't imagine I am
The most worthy of audiences -  
But you my darling,
You tread with such delicate feet
That I swear those footsteps were made to kiss
Those aching, whispering boards.

I'd tear my own script
Scatter the blank, useless pulp
Into every dark corner of that empty stage.
And I promise you, darling,
In a heavily silent theatre,
Paper peeling from the walls
In the daylight of a forgotten matinee
I'd carefully take my place amongst the rows of empty seats
And wait, for the sound of your feet.