I am still trying my best.
Stretching my legs to the coastline,
lactic shackles of inertia
are cast off.

I remember the ease
of animating these young limbs-
concrete strut, woodland walk;

it is hard to think of you much these days,
even in the confines
of unread books and filter coffee.
I have forgotten you, your blue dress,
your punting on the Thames.

There are harder habits
than caffeine and rich women.
As Ol' Tom Waits says,
“you don't meet nice girls in coffee shops.”

The glass roof of the arcade
offers translucent sunlight,
a high-street retreat from the nature of the sea,
all mankind's institutionalisation,
all these walls and closing times,
bigger names over bigger signs.

I am still a rare sight of youth
amongst the patient, ringed eyes
of those book-shop loyalists;
a choir of silver on their heads,
acquired wisdom of faded routines,
old laughter etched like the Nazca Lines
in their faces, lips eroded and pale;
sexless in the fluorescent lighting.

Breathing spaces where life exists
are always held closest to the fear of death.
I am still finding a clean way of living,
a way to accept my place, my face
in the mirror of my self-hate, anxious words
and half-conscious recollections;
the remnants and scars from asphyxiation – old drownings:

the sorrow that separated myself from others,
the sorrow that separated you and I,
you and I.
Your pursuit of a well-ticked time-sheet,
my love for sentiments that rhyme.

I have learned the patterns of the waves,
the way money is exchanged.

Oh, my dearest depression,
my ache for acceptance.
My endless, endless ocean of blue
can be sad, so sad,
but it can be beautiful too.