I lack will to put down any word,
unsure in what to let out, in vague strains and standard refrains and
I feel like a fog, settling over a row of hilltop pines,
    like I've nothing left, short of to get up and try.
  
    but I won't try, I won't try,
   anymore,
  no, not if you won't
give me a sign or reason,
               please;
just give me anything    to believe in,
because I keep running out of those,
                                               of time,
and it's still just
                                                    you,
                             turning my mind
into dreamsoaked wishful hopes,
             and that subsequent collapse into hopelessness,
               and all I know, in this,
is how lost this small, sad person is,
or seems to feel like,
                                 on any average day.
just like any other day.

say something or just
keep on makin' ghost-patterned, intervening silences,
                    singing
or half-murmuring
                                 verses, those ones from slow songs under low light,
the same refrain that runs between all the others,
through the passage of weeks, stained tobacco sweet by eleven-thirty iterations;

                       [post-meridian or particulate matters only,
                                                                           of course,
                                                                        it's hard to wake before noon anymore.]

with the way these rhythms keep us down
                                                          and out,
counting the methods-
the summations of potential miseries,
and the probabilities that all would or could turn around, before the end of the week.
                                                                                        or the next one.

                            and,
outside the door, the one after that,
                                       over the acres of concrete and pale shade,
streetlit likenesses hushing air through melting neighbourhoods,
                                                            I make imaginary footprints,
wondering which, of the field of household starlit comforts,
                           is the blade of grass you cast seeds from
to inadvertently germinate and sprout a well of aspiration, the wind in a stranger's ribcage,
                                                                      continually growing, hiccoughing leaf litter,
                 with every last breath.

I'm afraid,
for what it's worth,
I'm scared
of
giving up, or letting go,
or
forgetting, whatever you'll eventually come to mean,
and the drawn-out time, until then,
where everything gets further,
and further,
on a daily basis.

and both of us will be powerless to stop it.

and we won't talk anymore,
-not that we did, that much, anyway-
and I'll have to
struggle
to remember your voice,
and how it gently tugged on my ear,
in the middle of nights we haven't yet seen.

slate landlock, quaternary headspace open to face the light,
feel better, knowing it'll improve.
live life like
two drops from separate sinks, in simultaneous drive.
get it over with, there'll be time to breathe,
time to resolve that pressure,
building under left temples and fourth knuckles,

it's never been as easy as this to **** everything up.

it's never been such an opportune day.
shut the window and watch leaves fall,
let it all pass.
feel worse, just keep telling lies, keep making mistakes.

held up in gutterwork masterpieces,
half a shard of torn and ragged paper edged on,
where once it bore, proud and in eager definition,
a reminder of little importance or,
a note of sweet insincerity or,
the last refuge of an eviscerated mind;
and, lost to entropic freedom,
no-body would care to ever even want to begin deciphering those smears.
not that they could, anyway.

the death of parking lot culture,
they say,
is all down to the skin on the teeth,
of a couple earthquake-gowned security wardens,
and the irresistible clamour
of city lights:
"just gotta get away, get outta this place" you say,
when you haven't slept
a real night
in three or so months, at last count, in the best-case,
whereas the real tragedy
is the drizzle,
that you're sure
will never,
ever,
cease to fall,
inside of you,
even though you keep telling yourself,
it's still just a lie.
it's all just a storytime fabrication.
it's all just waiting to fall apart.

and you're just hoping it's sometime soon.

you never realise how little time you have.

I was late that day,
and had to be rushed into a tiny theatre,
where two old ladies occupied the front row,
and, in the back row,
exasperated and whispered apologies,
I took my place, next to her.

we sat, intent,
gazing at the projection's motion,
hands slipping into embrace and retreat,
every five minutes or so,
under the lightsoaked linen, thrown over us,
thread count in french or czech,
I would turn, unnoticed,
to gaze at her cheek,
the fine glimmering reflection;
I'd understood that even less.

I hadn't realised that it was the last hour,
'til she grasped my hand
with both of hers,
as we walked to the carpark,
wordlessly.
in that silence, it was clear.
I felt every passing minute,
each a fresh wound,
blossoming within the last,
and, in late revelation that we'd naively spent up
so many sun or moon's passages;
to think this was the devil's purse, finally running dry.

outside of the scattered lights of my building,
as we sat, in some stranger's station wagon,
bound to our respective seats,
those fleeting moments crumbled,
those minutes, those waning seconds,
if only to have had one single instant more,
to never have seen the end.
but, it's never that easy.

I hadn't noticed that she was wearing makeup,
until I saw her mascara run,
through my own bleary eyelids.

And, in that moment,
amidst that grand crescendo,
one kiss on the cheek,
another, clumsily strewn across lips,
a bank of regret,
and I had already closed the door,
walking, silently leaking,
out of her life.

moon stole the sunlight and, in mid-evening,
you could've seen the stars punch in,
with that consistent lack of effort;
the solid cycles, bound up against the patterned grain,
tracks hurried and buried in pitch,
asphalt markings on fingertips, molten and stained cliffs,
some temperate refrain, issued from distant speakers,
life winds springs and holds hope, moving on.

but, round the backs of tall thoughts,
meaningless as reason often finds itself,
that plot already jut out, churning,
and as a digital globe circled and lit up the whitewash,
the words on the wall, dried up, cold, and honest,
spoke volumes of rending misery,
split limbs, spilt cause, spent sleep.

and, now, this is the moment,
half-lip words, falling, ever so gently,
her rain, coating the floorboard dust,
already forgetting the rest,
the moment
promptly stood up
and left.