Boris the Waiter

This is just like my dusty memories,
sitting across this table from you.

Even the smells are the same
but your eyes have changed.

I caught you out: watching me watch the depths of my cup,
hoping to catch you watching me.

That look you gave me was a look if ever a look were gave.

That look you gave me could have stopped traffic...
that look you gave me could have stopped wars.
That look you gave me was a look to drown doubts
and set fire to fading photographs on cracked mantles.

And then the sound came seeping back into my ears
like all had been still for the longest time.

I wanted to gasp like a fish out of water
and I wanted to stare like i had been blind my whole life
but for once I kept my cool.

Cheque please.

Clean Slate

sting sting in the corners of my eyes will be my demise.
then nothing comes and I'm left without word, not for lack of the stream in my head.
so much hangs in the balance
and one foot wrong could bring the whole mess down,
and still we step.
step out onto the invisible bridge
with the clouds under foot.
step out of your own shadow with nowhere left to hide.
step out of your head and into the crossfire,
stepping on toes as you go.
stepping on toes and breaking bones,
breaking bones and dropping stones...
but bones heal and stones will always hit the bottom.
let them lie this time,
let them sink.

buzz buzz from the bulbs overhead, now nothings left unsaid.
I'm off like a bat out of hell, hands and heart streaking before head.
empty's not a bad place to be
when you think of how much worse it is to be packed to the rafters
with no one paying rent.
now we have space to breathe.
breathe in deep and chance that you might choke
but chance that you may breathe in hope.
pick yourself up and dust yourself off,
stand up straight, put your hand on the gate and get ready to swing it wide
and slam it shut behind you this time.

bang bang goes my heat in my head as i tell myself to get to bed.
but the buzz buzz and the sting sting require me to tell the tale.
hands have been held and hearts have been bared
and enough is enough for one night.
turn off the light

Almost Sober

You know those nights that feel like films: when you feel as though you’ve gone milky orange and black in the night light of an inner city photograph and when the song on the stereo is your soundtrack.

This was one of those nights; held up somewhere between a rock and a hard place on the highway back home.

 

The buildings we passed were skeletons still, without hearts. The ones that lived were deep asleep.

Sounds crunched and rattled and crawled out of the speakers as we passed car after car; tiny contained universes separate to our own.

 It was as if we were rocketing through an abandoned sound stage suspended in Thursday night lights.

Tyres on tar and eyes to window as the song played out.

More Than Blood (for my best friend)

If you go, those things in me will hide away and hibernate until you come back, because there is no one else who understands me when I speak about music like it is car rides and afternoons.

See the seasons as they creep across my face; autumn comes closer and things start to fall into place. 

And if you go for too long these secrets things that become songs and these secret parts of my heart will grow cold and my secret dreams will grow old…because you, my friend, are the only one who knows the whole way too my soul.

When it all comes crashing down, we'll hold each others hands and when the sun keeps shining we'll dance to our laughs.

In the quiet hours, when you are running on an empty brain I will hold you steady and say:

"The ink under my skin belongs to you, you held my course and got me through. We're bound by more than blood, so here's to you."

There's nothing that will ever be so true.

Bed Fellows

I stayed awake for a year to do nothing but breathe; shallow and grating across my ribs and up my spine.

I watched the dark weave its way into the sky and around the backs of my eyes. I watched the cracks appear behind it and its paint start to bubble and peel.

From behind my eyelids I saw the night pass into day and I shrank back. Back into the soft and warm as the light pressed up against the glass doors, searching for a way in.

Now sleep welcomes me again, so sleep I shall, and breathe easier.

And the dark and the light will come and go as they should, and time will move on minute by hour by day.

Autumn

I’d like to live in perpetual autumn. 

When the sky is so blue you are certain that it simply must go on forever. And the clouds that roll across it are herds of the whitest sheep that eyes have ever seen, on the move to greener pastures and away from the coming months. 

I’d like to live under the trees that shed their coats to match the season, and listen always to the sound of the leaves dancing to the tune of the bitter wind along the empty street. 

I’d like to live always while it is warm in the sun patches that slant in through the window panes and wash across my floor on Sunday afternoons, and while it is just cold enough to be happy. 

I’d like to live eternally where the expectation of something new and different hangs in the air, like cobwebs that you only notice once they cling to your skin: where the very world is on a precipice above something terribly exciting. 

I’d like to live standing on my toes in that moment before the jump and plummet: arms flung out and eyes closed, before decision and knowing, in that moment where everything is beautifully uncertain. In that moment where infinity and possibility are within human grasp.

I’d like to live in perpetual autumn.