2

You need to save your heart
To someone who'd remember
That's what
I wish somebody told me

It's politeness that means
I've never kissed you
Even though
I never stopped wanting to

Since the first time I saw you
My heart burns with
Seeping pain
Whenever I think of you

1

When you miss someone
You look up their profile
And you imagine that they too
Are reading about you

When I need someone
I keep thinking about
The opportunities that
I had missed with you

I can't face a day this short
I'm 23 and the night scares me
Because it brings me thoughts
Of why you're not mine

It Never Happened

I'm sorry you believe in fairytales and other lies
Maybe it's why I love the pureness
Of your eyes

To you I may just be a trusted friend
To me you're the sole obsession of
My wearied mind

I just try and laugh off my tears
And in the night shout back
At the choking fears

I hope it will all make sense
I hope it gets easier
To be friends

May

The bends and crevices of your nose
The moles and marks of your skin
The smiles I induce in you
As you lay beside me

The shape of your spindly legs
How you wear boys shoes
The absence of make up
On your pale pretty face

The way you can make
My mind race so fast
With possibilities and scenes
Of a shared future

Will we fall into each other
As the sun sets over summer
Will we lay with each other
As the winds blow outside

But reality always bites
You're not really in my life
I have to hold myself back
From showing you may love

Le Garçon Déçu

Through the parks where tanners scatter
The thought of winter, so far away
As to seem obscene

Over the bridges that intersect town
Timeless they stand, oblivious
To passing of feet

Past the tourists, who treasure maps
That call this very place
A dozen names

Seeing buses, cars, taxis crawl past
Ferrying passengers, disappointed
By slow progress

Finding spots, not yet devoured
By interests of commerce
Where idleness linger

We may lament how seasons change
But it's a matter of months
Before summer returns

The Week

Spilling out of stations from six to nine

Clocking in, diurnally and in time

So many lives, few considered sublime

How many to call a friend?

 

If the rain falls, the umbrellas come out

No lights, so full speed at roundabouts

Too much routine to leave time for doubt

Is standing out the making of man?

 

The evening comes and the streets just die

Time to think of things wages can buy

Grander ambitions seem pies in the sky

Best to sit and watch bodies rush by.

Let's not try to figure out, everything at once

The heroes have let us down
They made us hate ourselves
In a sea of hope we drown
Expectations so suffocating

This is adulthood, growing despair
From potential we may never see
Such a burden, deep down there
In the never resting imagination

I wish you were more like me
A proud drop out and a cynic
I just wish that you could see
If we hid it could still be fine

Or I just don't know you enough
To be telling you how to live
To presume so much from stuff
That only scratch your surface

Contact List

You, name on the list
An entry among many
I'll be taking the risk
Of catching you surly

Do you love where you live?
Does your desk see a window?
Does every Friday bestow
Casual shirts, ties festive?

Did you imagine, years ago
Your dreams light, brain heavy
A face fresher, a sleek torso
Others, not you, were phoney

I tick you off, I made
My attempt to reach you
On that list you fade
Metaphorically

Whenever I'm Alone With You

Leaving my parents' house early
To avoid awkward conversation
I will be older, more successful
I will move to a central location

Were you dropping hints to me
When we laid there together
Were you expecting something
From me, to take us further

Will you still need me
When you are more fulfilled
Will you still think of me
When you're closer to your goals

I smelled your scent on my T-shirt
I may have been wrong
To be satisfied

The crimes of time

Youth doesn't pay the bills
Your dreams get weighed down
By the hollowness of wallets
After the ring of cash tills

Beauty won't keep you with me
As my hairs wilt to grey
As my veins start to pop
Love never stays free

The kids need their tutoring
The lawn needs their watering
The house, it needs upgrading
What I'm simply saying
Is that bills need paying

Commuter

Forty minutes from one end to another
Still another twenty til home
Headphones cater for my self-pity
So glad to be alone

To have been brave to make demands
Say what I want done
To have blocked out the words
That ruin my fun

Throwing my body down on the bed
Tomorrow another 24 hours
I'll sleep when I'm dead
For now I live out my worries

The 50%

On your application, it was all
Aspirations of social mobility
For your motivation, it was mostly
Caffeine pills and short fixes

For your family, it was all
Our boy can be exceptional
In your urge to please, it was key
To show you as how others see

Three years wait, now here you are
Smiles ready for capturing
Nerves ready for releasing
Dreams ready for realising

The day, it always seemed so far
And finally, there you are
On page 24 of the brochure
Size 10 font, class of 2011

In My Heart It Was So Real

Back into the swing of things
Back into the throes of obsession
If this bird ever had wings
The cage around it is infatuation

Just wanted to talk the hard talk
That I can be alone and free
It's impossible to walk the real walk
And deny myself my needs

There's a rock on my back
Emotions compressed over time
I don't know how to crack
And follow the fault lines

Enough fingerprints on keyboards
Enough recantations in the dark
Pain and coping is what life's for
Sometimes it's vague, sometimes stark

The Dog and its Reflection

Business transactions do nothing for the soul
Drowning it in schedules and meetings
Underneath white shirts and ironed ties
The childish heart that wants to fly

Name checks, awareness, subliminal
Advertising, but what other route
Is there in a competition?
There can be no completion

When battles are won, prizes lose
All allure, when wants are met
The needs seem so irrational
Magic lives in the unobtainable

The Sea Inside

Life is the death of
A thousand dreams
And the birth of
A thousand and one

Everything so alive
And the sea inside
Me rages, a novel
Sense of naivety

I'll work all day
And night, sleeping
On the sofa in
The basement

I'll feel so happy
Just being in the
Vicinity of your
Divided attention

I'm just pathetic
But maybe we are
All this way
It's how we connect

Hugging a duvet
Pretending it's you
Looking at a couple
Pretending it's us

Otherwise

Blown leaves over grey pavement stones
Snow in March, so peculiar
Maybe it's just how life goes
Now

Music wafting over earphones
I know every word
I've known the song
For many years

Can I admit that I am energised
By these feelings
Of melancholy

The same toss and turn manoeuvre
Practise and honed
And bound with
Unpleasantness

The core of the problem is
I'm all alone

Despite wishing
Otherwise

I Guess

I guess, yes
I still guess
What life is truly like

What is it like
To fall in love
What is it like
To move away

TV and films
Teach me so much
TV and films
Make me incapable

I can't live as
Perfectly
As they do

So I can only guess
In this home
I can't leave

Nothing at Christmas

The shops are quieter than a year ago
Everyone is storing up in the bank
The Christmas lights do their best
But the mood doesn't fit

Such a shame to be from another world
This Christian holiday is nothing to me
But gifts I soon forget to value

School is out, the course is finished
I'd get a job just to feel alive
But they tell me no more help is needed
They are expecting a quiet year

All over we look forward to that drink
A chance to stop thinking
Where to go next year
All captured in a resolution

Waking up 2nd of January
Back to the same tasks
And another 12 months' waiting

So it's nothing for me this Christmas
I don't deserve much this Christmas
Waking up in the afternoon to TV
And the internet, so I can stay in

Computers

One day machines will rules us
So science fiction has said
I can only agree with them
As I type this up

From the supermarkets to the offices
From the children to the old men
Who are so eager to learn

Now everybody knows everything
About everybody else
No longer a need for the grapevine
When there are the bloggers

A tool, a lifestyle, a lover?
I don't know what I think of you
My Chinese manufactured computer

The Stars

The stars overlook me
And everyone else

To my eyes they are shining dots
I wish I could get closer and see
For myself they are anything but
Mere shining dots

What are we but simple fools
We can never understand you
What are you but consciousless
You can never even see us

So I live, never understanding you
And you exist, never seeing me

Regret

In the darkness of the night
I can't help but think of life
I've been trying with my might
But I can't get everything right

In the silence of this room
I'm still plagued by regret
Not my salvation or my doom
On small worries I am set

The Real World

Delayed trains
Forced smiles
Timetables that
Never give you any space

Failed attempts
To copulate
It just takes
Forever to know someone

No accolades
Without trying
No love
Without fighting

This is why
I prefer the world
In my head

End of Summer

End of summer Another year older Same old dreams Fill my head As the leaves yellow Fall on the meadow It seems like memories Are a refuge again How do I love autumn When it foretells impending Chill, long nights, coats That swallow girls' figures

Years

Feet on desk
Gazing at the mould
That languish
On wallpaper
That I thought was new
But I'm sure if I checked the dates
They would have been there years ago

Been there years ago
Lots of things fall into that
Category. I'm sure I had thought
That I was going nowhere
An outsider
Years ago

I've bemoaned
My lack of dominance
My dreamy apathy
My paranoia about the
Randomness of fortune
Years ago

I've seen
Those opportunities
Those glances that
Light me up briefly
Disappear
Years ago