You have appeared again.
I know I'm nearly home
because that's when you
come to take the air from me.
You come into dialogue
and leak memories over tea,
sweetening the taste that
I've long since grown out of.

I am quite different now.
At least I like to think I am.
I let my beard grow a while
whilst tiredness films my face.
I take the bus places now,
no more bicycles over the estates,
reliving anecdotes like old videos
and drawing your name in leaves.

I don't want to listen anymore.
I don't want to remember.
I don't want to go over ground zero
with a ***** and expect the past.
You have appeared again
and I can't handle it.
You have appeared again
and I am a shell.

You once called me callous.
You once said love is bunk
and lives in the spaces
between happiness and death.
Now you're signalling regret
like an echoing mantra,
thundering my loneliness
in the wake of you
and the way you are growing up.