If I ever make it
these books will burn
I don’t want anyone to know
how I suffered to make
the good stuff glow
like a photographer
shooting a thousand frames
for a keeper
I want people to think
it flowed
here to entertain
not the sympathy vote

I became hard
not like a man
but like a stone
impenetrable
camouflaged
a pebble on
the beach
able to blend
in with all the
other pebbles
and let the tide
wash over me

how do you feel

the silence weighs heavy between us

gone the friendly how ya doin’
for which I had the stock
I’m fine how are you
now we’ve brought real emotion
now we’ve opened a door

I really haven’t a clue
I’m a little sad
because winter makes me feel that way
among the trees shedding leaves
something dies in me
there is the loneliness of Christmas
from when parents wanted the cuckoo
to leave the nest

I’m happy when the sun shines
casting smiles among the shadows
I’m afraid I’ll live this day
with the disappointment of any other
little achieved in too short a time

how am I
I feel like
a hurricane in a tunnel
a fall on a spiral stairway
a dark stain on a white carpet
an accident in a car park
a raindrop on the windshield
of a moving car, an unseen shooting star
a baby feeling hunger for the first time

I feel like I’m going to burst into tears
for no apparent reason

I feel the money for this hour was wasted
I’m leaving going nowhere

they can steal your mind
if you're not doing anything with it
make the thoughts inside your head
voices we all deny we can hear

I push through the fog of doubt
convinced on the other side
is the light of day
clear and bright.

I see your action in my life
and feel it as surely as the air sweeps into my lungs
when I wake and my body moves
into the new day.

I feel love trip on the stairs
carless footfall of a suicide damsel
I see love fail in comfy chairs
the silence of a Netflix series
I taste the end of what seems like
a lifetime of omelette Wednesdays
I hear love crackle with all the excuses
of working late phoned from pub car parks
it's faint call from the bedroom door
"are you coming up to bed soon love"
the click of the refrigerator door
***** of another cold one the psst
of a bottle opening giving it's solemn "no"