three aliens who brought their own lunch

we find people to be to pass the time. I wait for the tram and scroll through faces on my phone. every smile matters to someone. sometimes they show teeth. I think about the tracks in the asphalt and the fact that almost everyone I’ve ever met I’ll never see again. everything is memory until we can’t remember. 

the days are light until they’re not. I wear a shroud of guilt for nothing in particular. premeditated tax for fare evasion or knowing where the money goes. conjure trials and tribulations just to give the mirror edge. I pass the aliens in suits frozen on their way to work. between briefcases and boulders we’re never anywhere for long. stoney eyes see more than most. stoney mouths stay shut although their secrets could be answers to my prayers. I wonder if they’d share them if they could.

livestock

the rhythm stops for sliding doors. an army of God's children waits for arguments outside. banners with photos of lifeless pigs hanging from bars in the slaughterhouse. I feel for the vegans fighting for converts with such a noble cause. haven't they heard? change is a daydream - there's no stopping the machine. what hope is there for livestock while we kill our kids in thousands? I want to tell them to watch the news. the men in suits have sold our souls: we're all just hanging meat. I settle on a nod instead. a smile of recognition spins me back into the sales.

I cross the street to lose a sense of knowing who I am. in the fog I mean as much as gaps between the tiles that make the path.

in the shade of Vogue

a dream: I wake up on the island where he saw the end of days. they've made a luxury resort of the beach. money glitters between the tiles through every grain of sand. I watch the people squirm and dance about the remnants of a city we will never know, repurposed for our whims in excess: to drink and eat and look in the mirror. the young stay young forever, pose for photos from the cave. swing into the Mermaid Bar: you can drink your weight in Aperol where he spelt out the apocalypse. supermodels bask in the shade of Vogue outside. everything shines gold against the sun.

the hand of a child reaches through rubble, clawing at the sky for nothing. her blood stains the dusty stones under which she’s buried. I can’t tell if she’s alive and wonder if she'd want to be knowing this is how it goes. the people scramble like water to pull her out. walls and legs of chairs and more debris of former homes between the body and breathing til tomorrow. when they lift her from the dust her face is washed in blood and tears. a shell-shocked daughter in double denim. I close my phone and look away until I think of her again. motionless fingers reaching from the graveyard of our greed. a sight to cast in stone and haunt the new world of tomorrow. I wonder what she’d think about where all my money goes.

last night's cup of tea

the city passes through the window like a film. at the rally the writer sings a song about hiding from the bombs in her mother tongue. the melody is a knife to the heart, or a curse to haunt the streets of stolen land forever. she reads a passage translated from a play she's writing: ‘when the world burns we peel garlic and keep our souls fed’. no choice but to keep the rhythm through the nightmare. there are always empty plates to fill.

pedestrian lies on sidewalk at the feet of the preacher pleading the city to repent. he waves his hands and shouts something about salvation from our one true saviour. on his soapbox in his beard, animated fresco of a prophet from the bible. he holds the book to the sky with a judgement day warning. we pass with shopping bags and more important things to do. nobody stops walking. but the lady lies at his feet, closed eyes, open hands. maybe she believes.

the colours soften in my room. gentle beige and peace on mute. it's all quieter here. life happens outside; I return to fold and sleep. the silver swan watches over the bed I come to dream on, softer than the heating humming through the floorboards. I take a photo of the fly asleep in last night’s cup of tea. 

hell is here

a crow taunts the smaller birds from someone else's garden he laughs and I miss the comfort of the rain against the window. static I can live without but relish all the same. I turn to my screens and pour the hours into spirals leading back into myself.

some headlines claim that hell is here, some won't yet verify. yesterday they killed a hundred people. fifty were waiting for food. I hear it’s laced with poison now. the news is fixed; the audience depletes. we have emails to send, oxygen to carbonise. apathy is armour. my faith wilts like compassion. I follow doctor’s orders, dig for something else to hate. a monster in the mirror and the patterns that we share. no pleas through the ceiling change a single cell. at the edge of the bed I’m the same as my shadow: protected by my self obsession from the nightmare on my phone.

I vacate the spreadsheet to livestream a funeral. I learn about a life spent before I knew him old. he studied latin and recited Virgil as a child. collected wines and friends from all over. whilst enduring treatment he became a student of his own illness, researching the cancer that was bringing his breath to an end. his daughter-in-law reads for her mother, something about love and consistency. I spy the back of her head looking up between the lectern and the coffin. the words matter because they are hers and I want to hug her but I can't. I choose a shirt and close the lid. places to be and hours to upset.

in the kitchen someone makes a smoothie. the blender wails just loud enough to keep me safe from thinking.

adults in the igloo

lost in self obsession on the tram leave bed and go to market just for somewhere else to be

they make sculptures out of ice

and take cash or card they’re selling dog toys and old postcards from dead places candles and art made by computers you can buy on shirts or mugs there's a lady waving flames like ribbons from her knuckles passing smells of foods I used to love in a scarf somebody made me that I’ve never worn offstage join the queue for something warm a prop to hold or make me drowsy a ticket to permission for eavesdroping on the tourists or dj duk duk’s silent disco under fairy lights like Christmas with the couples and the wine I dip my tongue in by another tarot reader

and watch the adults in the igloo

dance and buy the imitation of some kitsch game we’re all outgrowing on the uphill hike to hell I drift within the stream make myself invisible in my scarf on my phone behind cinnamon and steam ears open for nothing at all the silver angel sways on stilts I stop and watch her pose for children’s photos while the sirens sing in spanish drawing cameras from the bar casting curses on the city I should know a little better spinning on my heels

I track the way home on my phone

modern leper of the year 

playing hide and seek alone. 

cutting clouds open

the cat jumps onto the bed as I’m taking off the sheets. he stomps into the duvet and curls up into his spiral. it’s the first I’ve seen him in my room since my arrival weeks ago. I scratch under his neck and he kisses my thumb. the sudden affection fools no one. he gets sulky when any of us leave, as though a packed suitcase threatens his reign of the house, or the doting of four others isn’t enough love to lap. I run my bedsheets through the wash with clothes I can leave at home, the right armour already bound tight by a zip. the prince stays put on the bare blankets until he wakes and wants to eat.

at the departure gate I wait between strangers and flights to and from the city I used to call home. uniforms rush in and out of doors I’ll never walk through. they call out unfamiliar names to board and I laugh at the idea of sneaking through onto the plane in their place. there’s a foreign mischief pulsing down into my fingers. I couldn’t tell you where it comes from, but tonight is a little different. I don’t dread the return as I would have had I left on time.

in seat 16c I rub my eyes and think about you. ready to make another mess without a single word. watch the lights dim and remember what you are. does any of it really matter? cutting clouds open in the dark at however many thousand feet. we’re in between at any height. I let the siren sing because she knows more (when I don’t). Virgin has teeth. eyes closed and it’s raining inside. the lady with the trolley gives me orange juice for free.