Sleeping Alone
The first day, the first night, was easy. You were still locked in me, and we held the world at bay, all bouncing bombs and baritones and did you see me dance with my shirt off and holler into the setting sun and recall the days we crafted turning sewage

One in Two
You crawl into your sainted pit on a fragile Friday, pumelled into a three quarter submission, and all you can think about is the one in two and the Simpsons on TV and the stuffed crust homebaked pizza that is four and a half years old.

Aftermath
He doesn't need to say a thing and neither do you. Sometimes silence is the right thing to say and he always seems to say it at the right time.

Something Close To It
You smile at the memories, the good ones, caught in the light like the room that day, close your eyes, close your eyes, let them ooze into you, like bike rides to beaches and nights under canvas, daft on cheap vodka and no one can touch you, just you and

The Boat
By the river you could see a model sailing boat, motionless. Who did it belong to? You? It didn’t look like it belonged to anybody. Maybe all parks and rivers had these boats for children to play with.

The Birthday
Where did all the time go? Buried again, this time under layers and layers of Christmas cake and birthday cards, Sundays and holidays, the days inbetween filled with turning sheets of metal into bicycle frames.

Swimming
I meandered my way along the deserted road, watching streetlights flicker off and on, off and on, from clear to amber to clear again, unsure, indecisive, not yet sure if the new day had begun.

War is over
You can feel him tight in the sheets beside you, 4am, Christmas morning, and you bolt-upright, wide-awake as you always are on this one day out of three hundred and sixty five.

Shelters
But isn't this what you always wanted? No ties, the total freedom, the liberty and autonomy to do as you please?

The See Word
You first caught my eye when you refused to move for the bullies. You stood on the corner, fists clenched through fear or exhilaration, and, when they asked you to get out of their way, you looked them square in the eye, and simply said "no."

Potential
I am twenty-eight years old and nothing much has changed since the doctor hacked at the umbilical cord and told me, "here, here is your world."

Telephones
I tried to call you but I didn't. I trawled along stairways, walkways, and the like, daft on rye whiskey and falling into everything...

Chasers
You can turn around, put your shoes back on, open the door with the same stealth that you showed when you first entered, crawl back down the stairs, and pretend none of this happened.

The eyes
...and so I say to her "why do you like me?" and she says "you have soul and living life", and I think I get what she means, and I think back to Clapham and Golders Green and no one there ever told me I have soul and living life.

Boxes
We had twenty-four boxes in all. One for each year of our lives. One day I joked to you that I wanted to collect one hundred boxes. I wasn't joking.

Turning corners
Petra comes over and asks me if I'm ok, that I have been staring at the river a lot tonight, and I tell her I'm fine, just fascinated by reflections, by its colours and by its tones.

How To Fight Loneliness
The sun twists and pulls and makes shadows on the pavement. Dew sticks to the grass, hinting at purity, a purity long gone from this bitter soul

Captains Orders
I cannot move. Every time I begin to manoeuvre my limbs, there comes this insufferable pain in my stomach; like a million and one of the Kings devoted footmen have twisted burning bayonets into the pit of my stomach.

Dreaming
"He told me I was the best thing for you. It meant the world to me."

First Blood
She's a good person, a good woman, and she can do much better than me and what I am, for I am nothing and she says I'm no nothing I'm beautiful and funny and kind and I say you don't even know me...