When I was still young and fresh
A million years ago
I walked on edges
Always on the edge of something
Something wild

Bright lights and long nights
Lots of laughter and music
Always music
Singing with the band
Dodging the flying glass
When fights broke out
Howling to the moon
Oh, wild indeed were we

All shadows now, alas
Visions from an addled brain
Pubs, clubs and smoky dumps
Leave no turn unstoned was the cry
More fun than fundamental
And fundamentally flawed, it was
A couple of hours sleep 'fore the day job
With eye-lids stuck together
And walking into walls
But still I wouldn't have swapped it
For all the strait laced straight faced
Wealth in the world

                                 By Phil Roberts

I was never the type
of child that obeyed
much  of anything;
not even the many
times  I was told
not to stare into
the evening sun
when I felt
alone.

Inanimate smiles, like badly cut from
a magazine
                 photo
                         shopped
emotions that are moulded to the viewers liking.

This is how my empathy was shown for you
to
    see
          like I wasn't bothered by what you had done.


My face shone, like a shallow pool in the dark
with
     moonlit
              shadows caressing it and I was drowning.

Inanimate smiles, like badly cut from
a magazine
                 photo
                         shopped
emotions that are moulded after what you did to me.

she told me to write about
the happiest I’ve ever felt;
the happiest moment in my entire life,
and there is never such a circumstance
in it’s singularity that can be defined,
but in a string of circumstances
a definite divinity can be seen
through the cracks;
sobriety, the comfort of sobriety
makes me feel not quite as content
as the comfort of intoxication,
but the fact I can find refuge
in both is enough to make me,
the way the legs of my bedside table
are cut uneven and the way it
dances when I write,
the knuckle of my *******
kissing a hot coffee cup
in weariness, it makes me,
clichés and the cologne of
grass after rain
petrichor and nasal stained
memories make me,
smokers coughs and phlegmy
clearings, mental crosswalks
with hands and I still walk
with my mouth,
that makes me,
the sky,
and the ground,
mailboxes with the flag down,
telephone poles with expired
promotion posters,
faux homelessness
in small towns,
leaves changing,
trees dying and
coming back to life,
how the wind feeds
conservation,
weeds growing in pavement,
dandelion stains on new jeans
or new jeans staining dandelions,
snowfall,
struggling to pick eggshells out of
yolk bowls,
*** and cigarettes and they dont
go well together
for me at least,
abandoned barns,
barns in use,
the sound of tires on
gravel driveways,
the strength
or lack there of
to smoke when I’m sick,
it makes me,
the look of others when
I allow my dog to kiss my mouth,
the top fret of a guitar,
it’s low and reminds me of
a child’s cough,
wearing my fathers
stained white tee’s
under 80 dollar plaid sweaters,
it makes me happy,
all of this and more make me happy,
but I still can’t touch mirrors
and listen to the way I breathe before bed,
and thats why I sleep with a fan on.