What makes you so sure your sickness need not be heavily medicated?
You walk around, your body hanging like your favourite outfit that you never wear anymore,
stumped in a box
The street lights breathe like the cigarette that you smoke at the end of the night and regret immediately after,
the cigarette that tastes like glue,
The pads of your feet blink to the floor,
Your soft eyes watch the people and their smiles, they once represented jealousy but now sail past you like leaves of boredom from nowhere,
You chew on an energy bar as the purple plants, bike riders, suit case carriers and fire hydrants stroll by,
You make fists to fit eye sockets, but your hands stay by their sides
waiting for the courage to find the change that promises never to come,
You sit on the bench and wait for somebody who might chemically excite you
Your mouth clamps shut and your food rots inside of you molding your breath,
The dog walkers follow their excuses not to be lonely
and you crave a machine to make you feel better,
no human will do,
And the cats purr against tree legs and look at you as though you are stupid,
You sit around your friends wanting more intoxication
anything but this elasticated dribble of saliva they call ‘the gang’
Because another ‘gang’ is just another situation where you can feel alone and misunderstood again,
another metaphor for your life and incapability to feel comfortable,
You bathe in quiet awkwardness that only you feel
and cry when no one looks or when no one decides to see,
And you wallow in the self pity that sleeps in beer cans and wine glasses
searching at the bottom of them for someone who can relate to your loneliness,
And everyone thinks they’ve got the answers but you do too and you think the answers are no good either,
You call out on roof tops in the loudest voice your thoughts can muster
And the teachers who get paid to care have given up too,
So you sit like an old book being read over and over again melting to resemble an instruction manuel or something equally repetitious,
And you wait for the time to pass,
and the people too,
You wait to be interested by something,
anything that will comfort you,
But you seek solace in the smell of dustbins, petrol, sea salt, beer froth and your hands in the shower,
And hope that they’ll all
come together
and somehow
let you know
it’s going to be okay.