I can hardly remember your face,
left here in a chair,
room aglow with the muted television,
drunk as hell.
A man becomes a pigsty without a woman.
***** stains on the sports sock,
a battleaxe hangover,
bills piled by the toaster
and **** over the kitchen sink.

The bailiffs came.
I cried like a child through the burglary,
drank the Ganges in stout when it was over.

I have been drinking ever since
the Christmas lights turned on,
the town bathed in absinthe, teenage smokers,
Lithuanian women;
no chance of collision with you.
Eternal ashtray, brick upon brick,
cylindrical beams - an empire of ash
and odour. I can't smell you anymore.
How senses die, yet you remain,

stubborn as a **** on a concrete street,
stubborn in your deceit,
my old crutch, my faded ***** in heat.

I am a mess of old exchanges
whilst ****-stars **** on screen.
Fantasy is dead
as my first dog, defunct,
birthing colonies beneath the ground,
frozen over in winter.
I feel nothing. No thing.
Urges clamour for attention to keep me alive,
vague hunger, the need to bleed.

The paramedics came.
I cried like a child through the gift-wrapping,
drank from a plastic cup as they covered your face.

I can hardly form a sentence
in this fast world
of slow days and long aches in silence:
this is hell.
A man becomes a pigsty without a woman.
I see you in my ridiculous moments,
the insanity that stands in your place,
fractured light in the doorway-
my obsessive state, your forgotten face.