I am listening to old jazz classics
whilst drawing up our next dystopia.
This malformed thinking,
this habitual drinking,
is a life ill-spent,
talking to mirrors
when in lieu of a friend.

There's peppermint tea freshly poured
and sat steaming amidst ***** glasses,
old bracelets, and hand creams to soothe
all cracks that form. Nina knows how I feel.

There's dance songs on the radio.
They're playing for the drunk entourage,
and for the shower-capped bedlam
of those with nowhere to go.

I am waiting for the ash to settle like snow,
to tell us all that death is just a season.
A season for returning,
like forest fires burning,
from aftermath comes afterlife;
it is light in the shadows,
it is the safety of night.

There's unsent letters in my mind,
exchanging function for memories and wine.
***** luck, old habits, and Nancy. She descends
the stairs, and shoots me down again.

There's folk songs for the runaways,
for the hill-climbing peace-seeker, who
takes photographs of landscapes,
so that he can remember in spite of tears.

I am striving to find that beauty,
to hold it close, and thaw out in the sun.
My brain is mending,
now that letters are sending,
now that I can reclaim motion
and park-bench conversations;

taking back the 'I miss you's',
in a race we finally won.