let me tell you this
the numbers increase
then restart and you change
in increments
like the yellowing of a book
or erosion of a stone
if you must talk sit comfortably
with a beverage of your choosing
and say plainly
here I am
here’s the story of it all

let me tell you about music
about how Boys Don’t Cry
how I sit and let the melancholic
twang of a guitar
and ripple of drums submerge me
like a wave on a winter night
how the syllables of erstwhile years
still hit as hard as cricket *****

let me tell you about the television
the what we don’t need and reality
warped past the point of reality
breathing out the same few sentences
at midday and rat-a-tat of gunfire
on a street of sixteens
or in a dusty ramshackle of a town
now bounding into the spotlight

let me tell you about anxiety
about the bending extending
of my fingers
the inbound heatwave
at the front of my skull
the potentials that rattle
rainmaker until I hear my voice
telling my own voice off

let me tell you about the online world
the vanity that froths across the screen
strangers trying to be strangers
the illusions blow-dried primped
glazed over in a calorific gloss
or the pitter-patter of a criticism
that will unavoidably come
because it can
because this is how you open your mouth
when you can’t be seen

let me tell you about motivation
how it trickles like sand out of me
how it is steam on a windowpane
silvery and ready for me to play
but gone before the first curl of a word
is poured into place
I find naked envelopes everywhere
what is needed concealed under the bed
at the end of a lines-are-busy call

let me tell you about intimacy
to me an outline of a ghost
or an unidentifiable shape
like a face caught in a puddle
there goes a couple
in the first swirl of not-quite love
there are two teens
photographing the evidence
that they are a serious business
thank you very much
condoms instead of pick ‘n’ mix
holding a phone instead of holding a hand

let me tell you
this is how it is
or my version
different from your version
but the roots are the same roots
the premise about the same
do you have questions
It’s not a surprise and I told you
the numbers increase
then restart and you change
in increments

And this is who she is,
dancing in the space between shadows,
making squiggles on the windows,
singing when the toast sneezes
out the machine for me,
a bloom of strawberries in her bowl
ready for breakfast.

She calls me on my lunch break,
I ask how the painting’s coming along
and when I come home
she greets me with colourful fingers,
a shout of cherry on her cheek
and a cobalt wrist.

And she is the one
who puts up with repeats on TV,
feigns interest in football
but makes a great cuppa
at halftime, barefoot walking
back to me with a grin.

I know the blueprints of her skin
like my favourite book,
or a song from my youth
on the radio one morning
but I still know all the words.
It sounds good, just like it used to,
like it still does.

here’s the clunking throb of my heart
and you walk in from work
your hair a fluster of black strands
heels flicked off and keys
tossed into the bowl with a clatter

you flump onto the sofa
say nothing
but listen to the clunking throb
of my heart
and I know we’re both thinking
something has to change
but the answer is hidden
like a note under a stone

we breathe
and the traffic continues outside
we sigh
and the phone shrieks by the door

So this is how you
love,

hearts split
and shared -

if half apart,
            half together,

magnets that retract
into place,

the shape of your version
of us.

In a tunnel of darkness
you bring cascades of light,

lipsticked kisses
and your shoulder of choice.

There will be days in bed,
the languid yawn of sun

slithering across your skin,
a glint off the rings,

the shine in your eyes
as bright as the first time.

In your first, second house,
a toothless child wobbles on the carpet,

you’ll say
look what we made.

A son drips out monotone answers,
a daughter with her first serious boy

and you, as parents,
will proffer nuggets of advice,

as if spoon-feeding the tools
you have and they’ll need.

But, all to come.
It is the rise

and fall
of your song,

the hive of desire,
heartbeat buzz,

forever now
your diamond word.

And I, I clasp a glass
and you take what I’ve written -

here’s to us, my love,
our love,

the yesterday and tomorrow,
the painting we will create.

On the day the first of my friends marries
I am in my father’s car with another friend,
his partner, on a stretch of the A6
between our hometown and the hotel
where the wedding will occur.

It is an uncommonly warm evening in April,
no breeze. I am in a checked shirt
and corduroy trousers, an envelope
in my hand that contains a little something
I wrote just a few days before.

It is less than a decade since school,
sixth-form afternoons, but now my friend
is settling into what is expected of us -
a person to love, nuptials in a room
brimming with those I don’t know,

the obligatory search for a home,
the space between kids and no kids.
Two nights ago we went to the pub,
me and him. We laughed, he fretted
about the speech he hadn’t yet written.

He is a happy man, a ring on the finger.
I will leave them to it, to bask
in the first pumpkin glow of married life.
Tonight is about them, so it should be.
Look at our lives, how we move on.

you seep into my core

there’s my heartbeat
you know
as regular as blinking

the swatch of stubble
and Adam’s apple

the vanilla tinge
to your skin
as I drop a kiss
on your clavicle

there’s my heartbeat
you know
as regular as blinking

watching shadows
maypole along your cheeks

sun illuminates you
this is no illusion

the kerplunk of our pulse
inside our chests

there’s my heartbeat
you know
as regular as blinking

more bronzed

rectangular packets
of muscle
almost visible

underneath
another white tight shirt

the stench of deodorant
or aftershave
or cologne

or a cocktail of three

enough to send
a throng of blondes
in my direction

eyes like sapphire halos
cheeks that shimmer

phones infested
by a palette of pictures

all samey
all shots of a head
tilted this way
that way
back again

and if only
a little more funny

pouring jokes
in with your drink

giggles reverberating off
from the gaudy lights

looking so Instagrammable

we’d have fan accounts
by Monday
our own personal emoji

ITV wanting us for a series
and a blue tick on Twitter

you see it too
you must

and if you say

look babe
we look good together

I’d smile and say

yeah babe don’t we just