I still can’t find the words
Because, perhaps, a part of me feels
That you’ll look at me like I have ten heads
If I say how I cannot heal.

Perhaps I don’t want to heal at all,
Now I am a vulnerable, scorned thing.
The looks of realisation passing over their faces
As I tell my sorry story, my frightening fabula.

The tale of poppies and lilies and
The coldest winter I have ever known.
I was skin and bone with a ******* coat
And I didn’t like who it was that I was.

The tale of glassy eyes and cold ones
And throwing yourself at me
The tale of black and white pudding
Of Brett Ashley and Daisy Buchanan
Of ostentatiousness unrivalled.

I still can’t find the words
I’m angry, sad, tearful in public alone
Confused and bewildered.
Is that how you love someone?
Or claim that you do?

Is that the ‘nice thing’ you’re holding back?
Is that the swivelling chair or the casting couch?
Is that why I cannot seem to get over it?
Not over you, it.

And you say you weren’t well at the time.
I supposed we were both stuck clinging to each other
To broken to move away, to scared to be alone.
But no, this isn’t an excuse.

I still can’t put it into words
How profoundly odd I feel these days
You didn’t hurt me but you hurt me
And all I can see if your smirking face.
‘Calm down, you’re gorgeous.’

Oh, I could hate a hurt like that.
My sorry story, fantastic fabulam
Is it too posh if I speak outside English?
Why do you care? You knew who I was.
You know who I am.
You know.

And I’ll bet you also can’t find the words
So you hide behind cheap drinks and albums
And everything scummy because you despise who it is that you are.
Hoi polloi, the common man.
Whatever ‘common people do.’

I still can’t put it into words
And I don’t want to.
It’s too complex and I don’t have the energy to tell a story
To tell the world of the war I won
The hollow victory, the end of our empire.
Red lips, red boots, silver shoes.
Go to sleep, it’s over now.