blue

I saw your contours in the clouds

passing through to hide the stars

pale and blue and out of reach

a thought of you

in different shades

beyond possibility

no more than an echo

or an afterthought

I’ll take what I can get

waiting in the rain

clawing through what I recall

the sound of my name on your tongue

how it felt to hold someone

before I knew tomorrow

or the weight of lacking after knowing

stories I can’t tell

hints of memories shared

treasure now diluted

a fortune spoiled by time and questions

past lost to tomorrow

buried in the gaps

between thoughts I can’t control

in the cabinets I can’t reach

and shouldn’t think about

sea-stained volumes

useless and unbound beyond repair

memories or dreams

on the breeze

swallowed in flames

reflecting the sky you won’t see

blue as goodbye

look up

a sky without clouds

your words in my ink

on the letter you wrote

the walls of my room every day since you left

the bed in my head built from stone and regret

a door left unlocked

hinged on unfounded hope

come home to me when you can (if you want). 

how to burden

I sleep through my alarm and wake a little later than I'd like. the day feels wasted although there's still a lot of it left. I tell myself I'll write and hate myself for trying. at this point I specialise in making excuses to not bother trying. when I make time to stop and sit with what needs fixing I'm no closer to knowing what to do than I am happy with the way things are. I fill empty time to hide from my reflection: running, reading, taking out the bins. any chance to turn from what it is I should be doing. I go to the movies alone and listen to the people laugh. the Russian boy makes a mess with lots of money. running from his problems only causing more for others. we both know how to burden but he has a private jet.

my friend talks about setting goals to work towards. we eat Chinese where they do $5 drinks all night. he wants to get better at French and plans to sit a test in November. I'm glad he has something he wants.

before bed I pray for more dreams. it's all a lot of thinking about myself, without ever going anywhere good. I still read the news (still just as sickening) but seem to think about it less. rich people lying and more people dying. collective anger wanes, and I am just the same as every face and smoothie bowl on my phone. is my heart shrinking? apathy spreads, no longer locked away in the cell just for me myself and I. I care a lot less than I have and I should. what a shame.

I try to write until the tea is cold and I've lost an hour to disappointment. no words I find reflect the way I want to speak about these things. easier to listen than to live and tell.

sugar

working for tomorrow: the snake that coils to eat itself. blue. the boulder to roll up the hill to the shops (when they have what you need). sore hands and empty spaces between thoughts I can’t control. I dress for the weather and drink enough water. sugar to dilute the poison in my brain. step between cracks in the pavement. you know what you’re doing. work to sleep and dream of something else.

limbs too long

I pay someone $180 to ask how I plan to take responsibility for the life I’ve been neglecting. my responses are unconvincing but she listens and I believe her sympathy (it costs more than enough).

a friend I love tells me I owe myself more. I wonder what more I have to give. already so much time spent dissecting myself - I would have hoped to have reached a point at least a little closer to satisfaction by now. I want to get over the reflection in my mind and the mirror. I want to exorcise the parasite. I want to care again. my boulder is nothing in the face of so much I see on my phone. the world can be much worse. the spiral winds with or without me.

I wake from one dream into another. asleep in a cinema to lie by the side of the road, waiting to watch the neighbour’s car flip over. the playwright asks me to infiltrate a cult for his birthday (who am I to let him down?) we break into the old church at night, pulling apart the bricks to find my grandfather’s tombstone. a night guard comes to say hello. wake to sweat through sheets round limbs too long and empty time to spoil with thought. 

between alarms

I don’t think I know

cannot find the ends I connect to

please keep me in dream spasm forever

limbs too long for skin and sheets

plug the life in

wake for more thoughts

are we dystopian yet?

another night online

the rain comes while I hang my washing on the line. I run my housemate's bedsheets to her room and take mine to the laundromat up the road. the dryer spins for half an hour. I input phrases from one cell into another and make faces at the posters on the board across the road. concerts and albums and perfumes you should smell. more rain. heavier than before. the curb is a river. umbrellas and grey clouds over every window. midday looks like dusk.

spineless thinking spoils another day. restless fingers claw at curtains wilting into ambiguity. I chase the tail of vague ambition nowhere. open tabs to close them. check the forecast for tomorrow: 28 and overcast with a high chance of rain and disappointment. hope for change and settle for another night online.

patterns

the body wakes to work

and works to sleep and wake again

pressing buttons through the day for pay

and saving up for hell

loyalty is sworn

to the creed of my routine

hopes are dropped for cheques and balances

off the streets and on the screen

pressing the right buttons

I can build a home in spreadsheets

far from any fear of thinking

of the people I could be

sucking the thumbs of the machine

that pats my back

doing nothing for the world I used to want

forgetting care

or hope for change

protected from compassion for the people on my phone

numb to worry and the war

and every fight that isn’t mine

from the subway to the West Bank

wash my hands and lock the door

fill the fridge with shit to eat

I eat the shit so I can breathe

smell the traces of potential on the time I still have left

count the days until the weekend

like the weekend is enough

to warrant more

another week

of empty tasks and other stuff

I sit on the bed with regret

we toast to ourselves

and to more life tomorrow

a cocktail of neglected dreams

and tablets I can’t swallow

crushed to powder by routine

a plague that cradles me to sleep

I spill the glass of what I wanted

through the boards of what I have

use my claws

and try to snort

the grains of glitter on the floor

diluted by the sweat of tasks performed for the machine

still they glisten

between pages and buttons and under my nails

dimming but still bright enough

to pull me to my knees

and back to work

to sleep and wake again

in baseless hope of change

that tomorrow could be different

if I try a little harder

only work a little more

I could creep out of the shadow

of the hopes I cannot reach

and the dreams I cannot swallow

so I wake to work again

wash myself and board the train

work to work for more tomorrow

leave my thinking at the door

I shed my skin

and I’m the same

I will do as I am asked

there is nothing to explain

press the buttons

say the words and send regards

wait for orders

circle back

smile at authorised decisions

work to make yourself a winner

not the junky with an itch

for spoiling every chance he’s given.