cavernous cupboard,
with your door swung wide open
like an arm to invite me in -

if I clamber inside,
will you promise to close flush?

will you turn your key?

tidy my commotion
as though a commodity

I don’t know if you can see it

Every action of mine is a shadow of you
Every movement in movement with you

So now that I am older, now that I synthesise
I am long-lost, now I see

Every move I make for you
is a move away from me

And yeah, sometimes I find myself here

on this endless lake,
and my canoe is sinking

Getting creative, getting by

In the holes of the boat
I am clumping the reeds,
clutching at straws,
and wondering what I do this for

Half afloat, I ripple -
see these ****** echoes?

I cannot move without a trace



And still, the boat is sinking -

I think about how
I’ve never been good at swimming

Treading till I ache

Aching for the shore -
where could I find it?

Half afloat and rippling, as I empty
and I’m sinking

Yeah, I find myself here sometimes

Drying eyes,
don’t you shut
I want to see -
I want to see it all.

Here, take my resumé -
I hope you will take me

I give you my choices, my history

Justifying myself
to a chain of perfect strangers

Yeah it’s “just a job”
(my time and my life)

represented so neatly
in the attached PDF, 30KB

(hours, and body, and mind)

I just hope your computer screen
makes these corporate words pretty

I just hope you will throw me a line

I just hope it will make you see

that I’m just a person
who, given the chance,
will try.

Sincerely,

Ain’t the water a drag to wade in?
All I know is what I don’t want

Off the top of my head
I can think of
nothing in particular
particularly pleasing -
more evident
with every morning
the apathy wakes with me.

Through the day
this apathy is an anchor
inside my body -

My body and its constant crashing
into sandbanks,
under unpredictable waves,
saltwater scorching through

I take all my slow walks with apathy -
it holds my hand, saying nothing
but it's there
when I swallow till my lungs are full

Anything but air

And I don’t need a sigh
for this constant exhale -
clenching my jaw,
waiting for rain

If the world was water
I think I could breathe

easier

May the stroke of midnight lose me again
in the new year’s eves to come

I remember forgetting time and looking up
among the laughter, the smell of soda,
and my quiet fear -
it was six past midnight into the next year.
I didn’t know this would be
the year I heard my darkest voices
and dared to reply,
to be left by my fighter’s will, high and dry

Here now, this new year
is marked by the midnight
my friends and I missed,
grabbing for the remote control
to watch the fireworks broadcast
in a room dimly lit.
We laughed -
it was lovely
to escape
that dreaded turnover again;
the false promise of magic,
that last digit switch,
the secret wishes -
secretly superstitious;

May our future year endings
slip by us

May these minutes
make safe passage through our lungs

May the moment pass quietly by me
in the new year's eves to come.