Drop by drop, the measured melancholy,
Downing secrets from the past.

Tick by tock, each treasured nobody,
Their heartbeats beaten fast.

Hurt by hurt, each regret I will ever own,
My scattered promises, a broken trust.

Death by death, the full stop comes to pass,
Leaving empty spaces upon our paths.

Life by life, such are my memories lost in time,
Those precious moments never meant to last.

Tom Lefort 2025

Work in a call centre all night long five nights a week
On shift number five told to go drinking with the bosses
Drink till drunk then drink till you puke this is an order
I did this twice with them when I worked in a small BPO
Twice was enough drink till I crawl had my fill no more
Takes the stress away but I’m not doing it again
I was too tired after shift asked time and again
Let’s drink till we puke and crawl in many call centres
Not my thing now with my team mates who aint my pals
Too many differences interest wise and age
I’m not in their little click how many times?
I drink alone after shift five know what I wanna do
Not spend time with them or their fake friends
All plastic posturing and lies none of it for me
Work in a call centre drink till you puke and crawl

tonight I am a poet
but that could just be
the drink talking

as he sat soft beside me.
“Sure,” I said, with ill feeling.
My instinct was not to cross my friend,
I had too few left.

I nodded to the Ape behind the bar and he obliged
with one lemon & ginger and one green tea.
He knows his regulars well
and we know we’d need to wait til later for anything stronger.

“Look,” he said, and I turned to see
a gap and I counted the two teeth that were missing -
no, not missing - he opened his hand
and there they were, both accounted for,
safe and secure in his grey leathery palm.

“Look,” he repeated, (a little slurred this time)
and turned his fist so I could see
the missing skin and the bruises
that gave testimony to his amateur status.  

His ****** grin and wet laughter
shook the silverback back into action
and we got a plate of malted milks.
Like I say, he knows his regulars well
and he’d listened when I told him
where he could get a regular supply,
direct from Staffordshire, in the UK.

“Lo-ok,” he said (more hesitant this time)
and lifted his shirt a little to reveal the knife wound,
replete with knife, buried to the hilt.

“Loo-,“ he started to say, as he slid off the bar stool
taking his tea with him, the porcelain shattering on the stone floor.

I winced – the cups had been a gift
to the Ape from my mother.
‘Why should the chimps get all the best crockery?’ she’d explained.

“I’ll pay for the breakage,” I said
and the Ape nodded his furrowed brow
as he swung round to grab the dustpan and mop.

I drank my tea,
counting off the friends that remained.

Can I see your wine menu? What's the bestseller?

'We have bottles and labels from France, madame'

Oh...

Do you have something stronger?
Something that will knock me off my feet?
Perhaps something more bitter would be better.
Something that will get me home crawling.
Maybe something smoother and a little closer.
French just isn't doing it for me.

𝘋𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘻-𝘮𝘰𝘪 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘥𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘶𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘦𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘶𝘴 𝘥𝘶𝘳 𝘴'𝘪𝘭 𝘷𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢î𝘵.

it seems my entire life is defined by drinks.

mother's milk out the womb.

(and maybe those suckles were sweet - it's not like i remember - but her words, for the rest of my life, certainly weren't.)

an hour-long debate, with my best friend at twelve years old - apple or orange juice?

(orange, obviously, is the right answer. we rehash the argument sometimes to this day.)

the day i turn 19, a beer in my hands.

(i'm sat around a campfire with my closest friends, birthdays all older than me - the beer tastes disgusting, as cheap alcohol is, but i'm glad to be there.)

yesterday, i had 1 coffee and 2 mugs of lemon honey tea, 4 glasses of water.

today, no tea, but 2 cups of coffee, a glass of milk, and 3 glasses of water.

i bite at my nails when i'm nervous, swallow down the spit that comes with it, the bile that rises.

last summer, i visited pei, had a raspberry cordial - my favourite drink to date - then bought a case of 4 more to take home with me.

last summer, when i lived in new brunswick, my friends in the same building knew me as the one who would always have a drink in hand - a milk tea, or maybe a pink lemonade, maybe that obscure korean soda i liked.

when i left new brunswick, i took a photo of my 2 trash cans, of the way they were both filled to the brim with empty bottles and cans and jugs.

i still miss the apple cider they made there.

my life is defined by drinks, sips, swallows, taking five minutes to breathe by making myself a nice whipped coffee, trawling the internet for pretty coasters and glassware for an hour in lieu of doing actual work.

Eventually, i close the shopping tabs, take a sip of coffee, and resume with the rest of my life.