Miserable little town,
Drowning in your own hate
I won't miss your narrow streets
or your alleys shrouded in darkness.

With mixed and barbed emotions
these thick and heavy days defy physics
individually grinding
yet weekly whipping by

But in this treacled maelstrom
Friday’s unique frisson
still brings a cheeky tickle

Get that window open!
Go on, do it!

Feel the fat rotation of the planet
throwing a little spring our way
to poke our amygdala
and rattle our dormancy

and sure, we know at the back of minds
a bare faced bait and switch is in play
which means our twitching fingers
will seek to put the big coats in the loft
only with dismay to find the grey frost
return to bite our ***** mid-March

but we can dream and show some ankle
can’t we?

We hold out for this spring
harder than a man who’s lost nine digits
to frostbite
so we can point to where it hurts,
be heard,
aware that we’re linked,
a swarm of warmer hands
that need to hold, to cling, to brace
against this lingering, malingering pain

We’re ready to emerge,
but only together
and while inclement, duplicitous weather
still rages
we’re better, sadly,
caved

Cold white numerals
from the Teutonic-honest dash:
9.5°C

Not so cold, I guess
but not the weather to press the button
for the windows to drop

I do while accelerating
too fast for the road,
the fresh air has volume
that angry-loves my tired,
house-cat skin

The wub-wub-wub pulse in my ears
has a cause I control
for once
as the next curve beckons

You ask me how I am
“Tired”
I say
I slur

You preach your 3 hours of sleep
As though it is a feat
A competition in your mind
I know I have already won
Yet mine isn’t so victorious

I have felt years of heavy eyelids pulled down by black fingernails, the bruised under eyes and lust for more sleep

A weak bag of bones is all I am now
Collapsed at a laugh
Or a cry
My muscles show no strength
Neither do I

clarity is costly
and people seem to pay
tending to their mind
they lose it!

To Friday five I apologise,
to my profession and charges
I weaken and give mummers tales,
avoid holes of attention
that tired souls give in to

I love my responsibilities hotly
but there are ends to means,
so weekly turns have starts
which Mondays begin

It was the end of the day.
the sun was saying its final goodbyes.
All the men were going home to a nice dinner
not me, I went home to a deafening silence.
As I prepared for tomorrow, you messaged me,
asking me how I was doing and how much my muscles ached.
As the conversation continued, I felt the fatigue of the day wash away as we talked into the night.
and when we said our final goodnights, I felt ready to face tomorrow.