Every time I answer I give away a little more of myself
The list of things I need to be grows every day
Another gap to plug with lines.

It’s hard to take sometimes.

I have begun to suspect that the old adage
“It's not you, it's me,” is not really about broken love but about ******* job applications.
You breathe a say of relief, I can hear it, “thank god not another lonely-hearts column”
Only a poem, insipid and sighing.

But I’m fresh onto the stage treading the boards for the very first time.
Swollen by years of septic success
Swimming in a pool on the Strand I was a happy middleweight
In this ocean, I am a particle of micro-plastic, unwanted but bobbing along nonetheless.

Another email, better than no email at all, regretting, informing and wishing me the best.
I draw myself together pulling at the loose strings at my seams, greeting, informing and thanking them for consideration, again.
This time though, the holes seem stretched, the string frayed
I’m a little worried that it will give, tired of straining it will collapse under the weight of my doused desire.

But there’s not much to be done.
So, I fill myself up with some watered-down ire, three coffees, a nibble of cake and a croc of horseshit with which to sell my fire.