They turn the music on in the bar
just as I am deciding to head home:
when did I become
the first one out of the door,
yet still the last one to leave his room?
I tacked a map of the world
onto my bedroom wall
to echo a song lyric;
tried to plot worlds of my own
based on the chaos of the present.
But I cannot muster the effort
when scaling the oceans,
when I know there are stars
in their death throes,
putting on a show no Jumbotron on Earth
could ever come to replicate.

They turn on the music
to fill out the films of silence
that separate crowds of people;
all clans and colours,
brands and rags-
this disconnected town
is landlocked in yesterdays.
A market town with nothing
left but charity shops
and punctured breath;
I cling to poetry
to stop me thinking about death,
about who would miss who,
and who would appear
in the breathing spaces
between dancing and drowning;

the fear of the fallen leaves browning;
browning in the dirt
as we all must do,
whilst I ***** my wage
to buy some green
to decorate my windowsill ashtray,
the embryonic apples
hanging from the tree.
I replaced my torn clothes
and bought some new shades
that blot out the sun
I once so aggressively craved,
through my years spent
sleeping with the moon;
a temporary insomnia,
as I slowly,
so slowly,
found my retreat into a poet's tomb.

I am packing up my belongings,
I am falling in love with everything:
all the things that pass my way too soon.