It feels like the right kind of leaving
Like the end of a movie
Late at night
And secretly
I wish we didn’t have a destination

With her in the front seat
Him and his boyfriend in the back
They sleep
To the elevator music of my generation

White noise wind
Adds static
Like cards in the spokes of a bike
All spades and hearts
In the blur they dig sometimes

How this feels right now
Is like riding a bicycle
And a man in a car slaps your ***
As the car drives by

It is how life pats you one the back
Good job
But keep going
This **** hurts sometimes

It is a 25 mile an hour slap to the ***

After everything
And all the places I could be right now

It is why I got us lost I think
In the need for no destination

But right here

Snowman

I see his eyes
Dark and black
But they have potential
To be a fire,
Warm, bright, inviting.
I think I saw that light once
In your eyes.

Then there’s the mouth-
Nothing but a stick-
Crooked and sly
Yet happy in Appearance
Reminding me of your smile
Constant, steady, strong

As I admire the snowman,
A song floods my mind:
“There must have been some magic in that old silk hat they found,
For when they placed it on his head he began to dance around…”
You never danced, but maybe…
Maybe he will.

So I try,
but to my dismay
He dances a lot like you.
Tall and stiff
No dancing tonight.

He makes no promises.
With him there is no chance of forever.
He’s just around til the weather changes.
Easy on the eyes.
Easier on the heart.

Another line of that familiar song:
“Frosty, the snowman, was a fairy-tale they say
He was made of snow but the children know how he came to life that day.”

Cold, wet, white.
Smiling, warm eyes, nostalgic.
Forever etched in memories.
The end of a fairy-tale.
Enter into the life of grown-ups
Where I’d rather pick apart fairy-tales
Than to believe in them.

Goodbye Frosty.
Goodbye to you.

Since you called,
I've been writing,
here and there,
truthfully,
skinning the night,
searching for meat.

I've peeled back
the clouds: crimson,
the sky: split,
the stars: lit like the mossed edges of a scab,
the cosmos: a ****.

I'm getting weary,
all of this beneath me,
the earth becoming
a speck of dust:
absurd.

The kind of hurt you like to dole:
still there.

Can't I be an astronaut in peace?

Do you like the flattening of me,
into a pancake
like the night:
hammered and nailed
across the hemisphere?

I am the gravity-crushed,
the soul-sored, the black-hole ripped.

Opened and steaming,
I'm under the sky.

The emergency room of the brinking night drugs
and
a story of gleaming scars is my heart.

The world is a stage
We are all players
We are all puppets
Playing our own strings
When we try and control
And pull our strings
Too tight
We can become rigid
Out of sync
Not moving smoothly
Fighting ourselves
Getting entangled
In our own strings
When we let go
When we give up control
Is when we will find
Our actions
Are more lifelike
More real
We will feel more animated
Lighter
Smoother
Our actions
Gliding
As we glide
Through life
If we learn to give up control
Don't hold so tight
You are only
Holding yourself back
Getting stuck
In your own strings

As I opened my fridge one morning,
early on before sunrise,
I was greeted by the stench of tuna fish
which at that time came as quite a surprise.

And I poured myself a glass of orange juice,
the stronger stuff with bits in,
and then tossed yesterday’s Guardian
into the overflowing silver bin.

‘I’ll pull back the curtains’ is what I thought next,
nobody, of course, out on the street.
No sooner had I picked up the remote control
when I felt like something to eat.

‘I’ll get myself some toast’ I said in my head,
and smear it with some Marmite,
but my days, my eyes were so **** sore,
I couldn’t see if I was doing it right.

The years I’ve been waking up early,
every time it is the same,
barely making it down the stairs,
all part of God’s make-him-pay game.

But I finally sat down once more
and could now relax in front of the news,
only to see some cheery couple
with a glass of champagne on a cruise.

It made me wonder, what it would be like
if tomorrow I just stayed in bed.
Would I have an extra few hours to rest
or would somebody find me dead?

Then a van pulled up on the other side of the road,
bloke closed it with a very loud bang,
made me jump so much I spilt half my drink,
seconds later is when the phone rang.

‘Hello?’ I recognised the voice immediately,
a friend calling me at this hour?
They said how they wanted to pop round later
if it wasn’t going to be a terrible bother.

‘Sure’ I replied and then soon hung up,
my voice sounded coarse like Velcro.
Only then did my eyes see a black figure
standing right outside my window.

I sometimes play video games and I sometimes do yard work. I cook on occasion and on occasion it’s not bad. I get up, get showered, get dressed, and go to work. I spend time with my kid, my wife, and my friends in no particular order. I wash the cars on the weekend and cut the grass. I pay my bills on time and feed the cat if her bowl is empty. I have a fairly suburban life more or less. So what’s so special about me?

Everything!