Try and picture something different, to what's behind the window
When the sun rose, rosy-fingered that morning
summer solstice sing-a-long, kids playing, garden gatherings
Even when the clouds gather, same scenes, new ambiance
That nostalgic smell of rain on the concrete, and you think of family
the old summer days, in Nana's back garden (and the one holiday you vaguely remember but only that smell, and the sound of wood pigeons)
So you lay on the freshly made bed in some kind of silence
And you try to sleep but it's tiring
then you start to cry and the only explanation is that you accidentally thought about your father at work and somehow that made you sad
But, and so, you wipe away the tears and sit back at the vacant desk
Gazing at the faded screen
and you log into OkCupid and scroll through an impossible list of beautiful people with interesting lives and you close the window and you close the windows
Standing there gazing through the wan window (wile old Wilde) and a bright yellow helicopter flies by to some emergency rescue and you turn away and think about your thoughts until you think you thought too much but realise you thought too little about the thoughts that matter
And you stop for a second and turn on some music but ten thousand songs is overwhelming and you turn back to the window
and the rain is easing
Your brother slams his bedroom door and tries to sleep but the light from the Xbox is enticing and so he turns on the laptop
YouTube is endlessly entertaining to a child, he messages friends between videos of people playing video games
and so his friends come online and the Xbox gets a workout if the children don't
Hours pass and the sun hides behind a sandstone structure
Snoring from the next room, where you have succumb to the loneliness of the window
You brother never sleeps, there's no time
Besides, the room is too hot and summer nights are cruel
So the window stays closed, keep the bugs away
Heavy curtains crouch on the bed and hide the seasons, hide the passing nights, hide reality
It's midnight on the street below the window and an infant is crawling on cigarette butts thinking no thoughts
There's an agent on the corner that works for the Eye, and he's watching the windows
So cars pass intermittently and kick steam from the day's rainfall into the face of homeless kids that play football all night, like so many sun drenched favelas at the rocking equator
Drunken men stumble home and **** light posts and letterboxes, collapsing on themselves before the wrong front door
But, and so, anyway the birds rise early in the summer
and the streets are dried in promising dawn light
The drunken men re-adjust their ties and head to work
and the children all fall quiet, hidden from informants
when they should be at school but instead hang around corner shops
and tell pensioners to buy them ***** and Amber Leaf
The sleeping depressed wake and make cheese on toast
fall down the stairs and sleep in a sticky heap by the letterbox
and these lives continue on ever more
but that's just what the window saw
