It was a hell of a day
Sun and shade
Chequered your face chess board
And I was checked,
Heady between sips of beer and silent
like the smoke rising from your cigarette.
It burnt ruby, and I thought of jewels
And all the beautiful foolish things
I would buy you,
If we weren't here on a tuesday -
Mid-morning.
The awning weeps weary drops
From the drain that hasn't been cleaned since the place opened.
It has the colour of dark ale,
I stare at the pale in my pint glass,
think of the half a dozen things
responsibilities and togetherness
That could be part of us -
But are sadly too vast for these shoulders.

You hold out the yellowed filter tip
Lined red with the colour on your lips
Messily smeared - like it was done
The night before -
But I'd watch you adorn that ****
With shaking fingers,
Wobbly with all the worries of nothing
And everything.
You shift restless, pale arms stretched
Across flaking bits of bench,
drenched a weak grey by years and years of rain.
I rearrange the ashtray
And you smile at me, gap toothed and tired
Vacant as the breeze just dancing through.

'I'm bored' your voice slurs,
Like the thin trail of wine down your glass,
The redness settles and colours the stem
Colours your teeth.
It'll taste sour if I kiss you,
But I won't. I smoke.
Exhale the burn, blast it to
The clouds that creep across the sky
Lazy like each blink.
The world fades,
Black then bright.
Black the bright.
I think there might be an epiphany in my lungs
That song of something exciting.
It dances with possibility and makes
Me fidget in my seat
Maybe
Might be
Could be
Possibly.
Expectation makes me shrink into my sweater all holes and broken stitches, that itch as I pass you the last bit.
You smoke it, flick it
And all the potential goes with it
'Do you want another drink?'