The man sings like a plague
crawling on the ground,
its attachments are not the first
thing you’ll notice, but when
his verses and the tone of his voice
slowly takes over the machinery

of your Monday morning misanthropy
you’ll begin to wonder
how you could ever forget
that loving takes more from you
than you could ever give, and how
you do it anyway. The toxin

now in your lungs, and your body’s
immune system is hostage to his
rhythms; chasms of his songwriting
has metastasised into your liver:
I love you’s taste like anxiety induced
speechlessness, and bile, and how

many times will you run this over
in your mind like a hallucination.
His song like a plague,
has wiped out this population
of sorrows, and what now of you
who has only ever claimed

that sadness was your art, your clothes,
your home, your sanity.

*What now?

Who needs a noose
when the wait will **** you anyway.

I'll toll the bells in your return-
you've come back empty handed,
without any stories
to tell me.

I'll lie awake tonight again,
and you'll have nothing to tell me.
No happily-ever-after, no stories of heroes and queens.

I'll wait and want to be tangled in narration,
and dialogue and maybe finally
slumber might find me
and take me in.

And you'll tell me that you're sorry,
that you owe me histories and narratives,
that my eyes won't rest
and it's all you're fault.

But oh my dear,
all I wanted was for you to know
your homecoming
was my most favourite story
yet.