used to be fun? & staying up all
hours, playing blues & lighting
candles & drinking, was the best
substitute for sleep? & now i am
tortured into knots of restless
moments & sleeping on the couch,
including too many things
in dreams. & these eyes
red raw, swollen, still
unemotive are yearning
for a single feeling,
something so small
but it could solve
everything
oh, & remember when i
used to cry over you? writing
whatever i could in your honour,
feeling for you, eluding you so
carefully. too carefully. when
at last i met my defeat, gave
you every last drop of
my cleopatran ways,
it did not matter
it was so simple
& it struck me
that all i want
is what you represent
every summer i find myself
in the same position, in the
same questionable act. avoiding
& toying & worthless & low.
you are all
of my contempt
in a tango beat
i've been examining old wounds
unsure if they have burst again.
the ones in my back, where the
blade has been bent ((& you give it a twist
& you give it another)). this is where
you went back on your words for
the first time, this is where i
realised how fraudulent you
could be, how insincere &
hurtful you could be.
i still resent you
i still want to hurt you
even when i kiss you across the cheek,
leave an imprint of perfume on your shirt,
oh
i just want
to watch you die.
i have come across too many pairs
of brown eyes, full of capabilities
& artful lies. they have toyed with
me until a point of madness, inducing
this feeling. like a poison, they are
making me slowly, sumptuously insane.
hallucinaions that frequent my unrest
& i need you to blame
& i need you to blame
these eyes, made of counterfeit feelings,
of souls set in stone,
they are telling me things
beside the quay. they are
questioning & mocking & showing
what they really think of me.
it's hard to believe that you,
my so-called friend, have ever
been honest with me.
i'm sitting there with my single shoe
you're trying to beat the truth out of me
i will not give in
i will stick to my stories
to my self-pity
to my complications, arisen in a moment.
you never understood how hard i had
to make it, just so it would be
easier on me. you never believed in
my devices, treat me like a child,
ask wildly, then expect
too much of me.
so i am left
conversing with the wall,
lit up orange by the traffic outside
men there have been shouting all night.
so i am left
standing with a petrol pump at hand
at once aghast, distressed, worn down.
you don't see what you put me through
so i am left
washing dishes at two
in the morning, humming slowly to myself
songs filled with lines of mourning,
& i am dying there, over the sink.
i am haunting my thoughts, my memories
searching for someone like you, trying
to reverse a heartbreak gone good.
i am going over everything,
feeling so meagre, so bare
so very worthless.
& it would have been better
to have never gotten over you
because there was so much solace in
your left-handedness, your angular jaw,
the way you moved.
i miss the way you move.
there is an empty blue cup in front
of me, next to a white china plate
& this small scene seems
so poignant in the dim lights,
so suggestive of how things are.
now, i am waiting for daylight
to vanquish me
to consume & capture me
in pitt street today
i hugged a boy who gives
his hugs away for free,
he looked as though
he had not bathed for several days
& yet, his sign insists his hugs are free!
why can't things be as simple,
as delightful & thrilling, as
a stranger in the middle of the city?
such nonsense. i am tired
bruised by my own thoughts,
so empty that it hurts. i
cannot explain. i cannot
tell it straight; everything
is smog on smoke on grey.