so this is it
jumped ship
or whatever it's being called
these days

I feel myself
falling
Alice like
into a murkier space
than before

where the silence
gnaws at my brain
splinter of a twinkle
heavens above

quite obvious
what's happening
ignorance that flares up
like a blanket of acne

an excuse that drips
quick from the fingers

your game is peeling
from every corner
and rolling the dice

ain't as easy
as I found it
when you spoke
with an actual voice

Two people are kissing
on the bus, their lips
entwined like one knot
of candyfloss. Nobody
else notices this, or does
but doesn’t care, eyes
peering gloomily out
the windows at the
belly of fog across
empty fields. I wonder
how long these two
have lasted, how long
they have brushed
tongues and laced
fingers with each other.
Barely eighteen, adolescence
prickling their skins
like heat rash, the fear
of young adulthood
a neon light down
a dark alleyway. I wonder
if they will last. I doubt it,
but there is no way of telling.
I ought to say it’s fleeting,
that in half a decade
you might not know
each other, two people
together once in some way
but now not, or with others
who have yet to enter the frame.
But it would be rude
to interrupt. They kiss,
I sit.

Thirty pages     into a thriller
when she steps     out

blue-bikinied     beauty
water clinging     to her bronzed skin

like a t-shirt     made from opals
slick curlicues     of hair

and blinking     the sea away
body     a perfect pair

of inverted     parentheses
sand populating     between every toe

wet specks     that dribble
past the collarbone     between the *******

I am looking     at a moving painting
stupidly entranced as if     this was a Picasso

improbable     as always
but enough     for me

to put     the book down
a flawless frame     radiant and alive

and just five     footprints away

for God’s sake
     the plot well lost

moths back in my head
                                 flappity flap
   worries
     quickstepping against the light

they’ve got it easy
   when I think about it
the kids at the school I mean

     know of the swarming
                 strange desire
                                to impress
   with altered pictures
     but no notion
   of depleting tenners
        raindrop-like friends
        that slip through fingers

my agitation a snare drum
     everybody else
          out of tune violins

I’ve never been good at jigsaws
     give me the next chapter
     of my damp-speckled twenties
     fully formed
with a warm glow

what was the question
                                       again

oh
wondrous
you

among
the
wreckage

came
from
nowhere

to
my
eve­rywhere

I am either one person.
or the persona I created.

don't think you like
the fat. black full stops
I offer. handshakes where
the gloom seeps through.

what is this. change
of season and a mind
squeezed lime-like.
know what's on
without having to look.

oh look. help drip-fed. when
you're in the mood
but stops short. or
a faded repeat of what's
come before.

don't tell me
I'll be liking you. next
for I'll only stub
my toes. Not gold standard.
Slip into the outfit
handed out by another.

inhale. leave it.
leave it
to early morning REM
and my silly illusions. where
the comma in your breath
suggests something more,

between one or the other
revelling in the *****
of a moment
that has been well rehearsed
or drowsy in the clasp
of some strange blueness
that coats itself
over my skin
like a viscous
odious paint

there are tricks you know
that I don’t
sleight of hand
misdirection
tell me because I am in a stupor
tripping through the best years
repeating familiarities
friends are ****** in by the shadows
or swallowed up
in the whirlpool of marriage
or trickles of intimacy

I told you it was like this
one eye on the phone
one ear on the words
nothing is shocking
bar a ripple of a shudder
normal service is resumed
but I told you it was like this
didn’t I
oh you went silent
don’t blame you
if you forgot