#16: Cold.

At five in the morning
He noticed she had the smallest
Of small wrinkles all around her
Half-closed half-hungover eyes
And a part of him still in
Love hurt at the sight.

Later at nine(ish)
She found him bent over
The bills from last month that
He still couldn't pay, so she
Went to the other room to
Turn the radio to something happier.

Around afternoon
He looked at her during lunch
Really looked at her and her
Mismatched eyes and too-red lips
And her alwaysmile and her what'swrongbabe
And her trembling fingers under the table.

Tomorrow she'll wake up later
Than usual, stroll into the emptyfullish
Living room and find his letter under
The house keys, telling her how
Farces don't really last, sorry.
Sorry.

#15: Old memories.

We sigh
We fall back
Losing a fight
We never knew
Was us and ours
To lust and lose
While our backs broke
Under the weight ever growing
And our fears drive us
Fast aground, run and hide
From what once was
All us and ours
To bend and blister
We never knew
That battles begin-
But the war
Goes on.

- 25/11/2014

#14: The Ballad of an Almost-Poet

On days when the Sun
Refuses to win the Sky
And winds sharpen their smooth edges
Over the contours of life-weary faces

When you need to huddle over yourself
And hurry down the street a little
Before you realise there's nothing to hurry towards
And slow down once more

On nights when you lie awake
In bed for mindless hours
And feel electricity surge like power in your fingertips
Wondering if mediocrity is all there is to Life

When the dark is all you can bear
In the endless Night of a bleak world
And you almost wish the Selfishness of humanity
Will manage to kill it

You realise that this life is
Too short for realizations, and
Too long for happiness
So you pray for
Strength to bear your breath
And a few more words to
Just put pain to paper.

Because when all the Seas dry up
And sand fills up what pretends to be Soul
Maybe you will find the Love you need
And the words you died for.

#13: You're always unhappy, she said.

Why?

"Because the world's full of music-
Beautiful and brilliant and beyond my reach;
And I'll never understand how to make
Love in Spanish.

Because the few moments of utter comprehension
Pass between my fingers like so many grains of sand-
And my words flee me before I could
Capture or enslave or ink or kill them.

Because television promised me too much,
And the novels these days are promising me too little,
And I understand little of postmodernism,
And nothing of microeconomics.

Because I forget everything worth
Remembrances, and every Sun sinks
With an ominous promise of a day when all
Will be forgotten or nonsense or both.

Because I was allowed
Everything that light ever fell on,
Yet there's so much in the world
That's beautiful, which I shan't lay eyes on.

Because every second of my life
Witnesses poverty and cruelty and unfairness
And the instinct for survival will never let me
Wallow in empathy like I probably should.

Because tonight I'll promise myself again
To tell you that we can't keep seeing each other,
And that your cooking is bad and your poetry worse,
But I'll just smile politely at dinner and nod at all the right places."

#12: A Day Away

We went to the beach last Sunday-
Him, me and the spaces between us.

The clouds seemed to swell in the sky
Large enough to squeeze themselves
Into the nooks and crannies of
The darkest corners of my mind
And wipe out whatever's left
Of you upon me.

And the road went on and on
Like Mrs. Rosama's lecture on Herodotus
And the black tarry wormy line
Piercing the horizon seemed to
Be pleasantly comfortable
In its interminability.

And this old little piece of shit
That pretends to be a car
Whined and groaned and moaned;
Complaining with age and disuse,
But not loud enough
To drown our silences.

And when we reached the overcast town
And he sighed and I laughed
At the sight of the sea
And the first drops of rain fell
Just as the first wave crashed at my feet
I swear, I almost forgot you for a moment.

#11: Remembrances.

:

So turn off the cheap yellow light
Standing on the side table
That threatens to topple
With your every moan

Slip inside the almost-white almost-clean sheet
And hold your breath until you choke
Upon tides of black memories
Or the stillness of black air;

Wait for the demon under the bed
To rise and claw your insides out
Bring back black memories-
Of all you pretend to forget-

May it force out our kisses:
Burn my touch on your skin:
Whisper my voice into the Night:
Cry into the hollows of your shoulder blades.

Let the dark moon rise over
The sight of an almost-there Love
And the bruises of the memories
Of all you pretend to forget-

Leave the demon under the bed
When you flee from yourself tomorrow
And hide the marks on your arms
So that they'll never know.