Woah there, stop. Stop. Control your breathing.
And look at me now.
You let it gallop away from you, didn’t you.
You had it under control. But you slipped.
And you should know better than to ride without a saddle,
The fretwork of ribs
Digging against your tired groin with each stride
And by then who’s riding who?
It bucked and thrashed and the rope frayed and arced, wild
And yet you held on, didn’t you.
And you were dragged along the ground
Senseless
Barely there
Through the rocks and silt and filth
Rope still in your grip
Skin flayed and dust and grit peeling into eyelids and gums
Until barely a face left to call your own.
Next time, when you fall off,
Let go of the rope.
Let it run away and find new plains to inhabit.
Oh! I saw that thing you did.
Yeah, really cool.
It took a lot of time did it? Yeah?
I thought it might’ve done.
What’s that? It made you feel satisfied
Creatively and intellectually? Wow.
I thought about doing something like that,
Once.
Yeah, maybe I’ll get round to it.
I felt bad so I went down to the market
for something to do.
It was nice, for all too brief a moment.
My thoughts got lost in the
ripe reds
and bright yellows of big Italian tomatoes,
and while I hovered over them like a fly
I picked the perfect ones
based on important things,
like roundness and lack of bruises.
Your body is a toast
To long summers
And minor injury
Weather that’s black n blue
Whether
At the end of the day
Or the end of the month;
The long morning slog
The mid-afternoon slump -
Together’s a beautiful place
For us.
You slouch by my side
As we sit splayed
On the sand,
Watching the sun
Sink into the
sea
When you breathe I relax
And tell you that it’ll take more time
To gather my thoughts properly
To address such a feeling.
You keep your bed tucked into the corner,
Right under the window. How you like it.
Awoken last night, I reached over and touched you;
The small of your back in the small hours.
You were freezing, and unresponsive,
And it took me far too long to realise
My fingers
Were tinkling across the glass
I know myself well,
Don’t get me wrong
But I have no idea how I’ll feel
Two months on
From now
When the sun comes out in all its glory
My emotions, pray tell -
An entirely different story
Your skin the colour of summer holidays
Your brown eyes that glint in that certain light
I know all it would take
Something so subtle, so slight
The movement of your mouth
Merely suggesting a smile
But that’s not what I have now
And I can see it, in those same eyes
That the creases on your brow
Aren’t tan lines