Save for the tramlines
marked seafoam white across
my forearm,

the evidence of my obsession,
my fetish
for all that has passed
remains unutterable.

And we could kiss
in a film still moment
that I play so incessantly in my head.

We could.

But it will ring.
Discordant and a lie,
our blackened lungs telling all
of the innocence we left behind.

The school bells chime,
also out of tune but
in time
with the slap of my hardened feet
on these city streets.

Oh, I could smoke
under the bottle green bridge,
adult and proper
with ash disturbed into the fibres of my jeans.

I could.

I could tempt the hand of death;
otherwise fold
under the weight of your eyes
that stare back at me
every time I close mine.

You chase me through photographs,
polygraphs.
A lie, a lie, I conjure a lie
to sleep between
to lie within

a cut of skin.
Would you marry
the middle C?
Hammer the strings
twice for yes

to meet me halfway.

For now I will hold the fort.
A thought please,
as I wait under the eaves
of the dripping tiles
for all of you to quit playing adults,
and return to me.