I should have forgotten your face over time,
Red flush on your lips after a bottle of wine,
I should have pushed you out of the door,
But still I loved you,
Still, I came back for more.

I should have left you in the hurricane
After you drowned me in the flood,
I nursed your nails after they tore a wound,
Like any good lover would.

I should have kept talking about the starlight
And not the darkness in between,
I should have met you after the pills,
After I finally got clean.

I should have forgotten your claim over time,
Ruined songs now a white-noise lullaby.
I should have seen it coming,
I have seen it all before,

But still I found I loved you,
Still, I came back for more.

Ground zero again. Ghost ties to old moods
now that you have found happiness,
or at least the line of best fit.
Lips interlocked incessantly on the astral beach,
over the September permafrost
where I held up the chains of my cell
just long enough to kiss you.

Chambers of blue blood, of blue feathers
interspersed in the lining of our pockets:
I felt I could fly when I finally met you.
Heard the callousness, the human history of suffering,
when the chains overwhelmed,
when I fell back to the ground.

You were my fortune in the wishing well,
but now our tongues are rearranged,
all passions now platitudes,
another name or witness to wish me well.
Ground zero again. The foundations exposed
on what might have been love.

Monoliths of steel and scorched earth.
Broken vessels sail by in the night, influence of wine;
words are tempered but the intent remains.
You remain. Extinguished shadow in the skyline,
phantom limb of loving arms. I cannot find the stars.
I cannot reach out to anyone in the space you left behind.

Well the dogs begin to bark, disembodied
on the cemetery hill. Gravestones are silhouettes,
furniture in the night. From here you can see the housing estate,
constellations of halogen bulbs and bicycle reflectors.
All is still but my mind and the sound of the dogs in the distance.

A lofted branch, a hanging thread:
when did the rope-swing become a noose?
We came down from the trees
to burn them to the ground.
A thousand signals pass overhead. Unintelligible.
Unseen. The homeless leave ****-bottles of cheap cider
and backwater in the flower bins

but no one has seen them do it.
A chapel reflects the distant street-lights, unmoving,
so that only the trees share my discourse with living.
The dogs have shut up. The signals continue.
I lost my way again on the cemetery hill.
Scars have become medals.
My heart refuses to still.

Walked away from the world, save for luscious green
and cigarette smoke, I wonder what makes her ***;
what makes him stare mockingly over his glass
when I tell him that the system is broke.

Walked away from the world with an acoustic guitar
and notes like foundation, pressed to the corners of the walls;
the inside of my skull.

I cannot find my way out.

Walked away from the world, save for stubborn breath
and stubborn weeds poking out of the concrete in the streets;
what makes them break out for the sunlight,
what makes me crave for retreat?

Walked away from the world without a direction,
notebooks of freedom, seasonal depression;
the fork in my tongue.

I cannot find my way out.

Now the working day got me blue again
and the taxman takes all profit from my sanity,
lining the pockets of the rich in this top-heavy system.
I fell to the delusion that the left is always right
in this fight for centralised power,
but now the working day got me blue again,
and I'm tired of watching the news at ten.
I'm tired of seeing the human race **** each other,
so I turn off the television, and I try to live again.

Try to live past that working day,
past the need to keep artifacts from yesterdays
that can never effect the here and now.
Try to live past the event horizon,
the Great Electron in the sky;
the awful weight of uncertain futures-
but the working day got me blue again,
and those twelve hour shifts **** my strength
before I can punch through the wall that separates
you and I, from the happiness we earned,
the tears we cried.

The working day got me blue again,
and I've been quitting smoking for five years now,
But bad habits accumulate when you have no time
to file all the information that passes your way-
like dust across a construction site, when they promised
things would change. Though I've been breathing since birth,
I still turn to cigarettes as if they were the only thing that will calm me
in this sea of high expectations, sugar and caffeine; an isolated reality.
The working day got me blue again
and only music seems to talk above timesheets
and all those titles given to fools that you must obey.

I try to live past this humdrum panic,
this commonplace, day-to-day emergency.
I have been waiting for the paramedics,
for a team of experts or an expert lover
to frame all my fears into words, into diagnoses,
into myths and fallacies that tell me everything will be okay.
Everything will be okay, despite the finger on the button,
despite the chaos in my brain.
The working day got me blue again,

the working day got me blue,
and so all I can think of to do is to
fall into the grooves, into the static sheet of familiar melodies
on midnight walks, only my headphones and a cloud of smoke
to keep me company. The constuction site is always under new management,
the disabled are always ****** over by the government,
and its a surprise the fire service can still afford the price of running water-
double the price of Coca-Cola, and all the sheeps left to the slaughter.

I try to live past the bitterness that kills invisibly
like Carbon Monoxide; a fog, a cataract, that occludes the vision
so steadily, so incrementally,
that you cannot see the Scrooge in you,
until you find yourself alone in your room,
when only yesterdays remain, tattoo on your skin
in a series of callouses, of scars; photographs of guilt or all those better lives
lived by better men. Better women: better blades of grass and ameoba.
We stare into our phones in some punch-drunk hypnosis,
glowering at the world that distracts us from distraction.

The working day got me blue again,
and so I fall into a retreat. Into a fox-hole of self-delusion,
of puppetry in the world through my ugly words
and solemn verse; as if being clever with my tongue,
as if being cursive at the microphone is enough to save the world-
or at least, to save myself. You see, I've been a beacon of poor mental health,
I've been a victim of my own crimes for too long,
but the working day got me blue again, and before I find that strength
to punch that wall, or to make a change,
the working day got me blue again,
the working day got me blue again.

I try to live past the elevator jazz, as I stand on hold
for a company that would just as quickly drop me,
despite the smiles on their logos, despite their slogans of delight.
The lights went out a while ago,
and so I'll work another weekend,
I'll fix up my future pay, I'll sing sadly into my guitar
after a twelve hour shift, my ode, my unrequited love,
my poetry for Saturday.
You see, the working day got me blue again
and though I've spent my time saving up,
putting in the hours to fill my cup,
the working day got me blue again,
the working day got me down.

You taught me that mindfulness is staring at the moon
and watching the clouds turn colours like the Caño Cristales;
last year's poetry, last year's demise,
swept to the ocean salt through the river of time.

You taught me the out-breath was the signature of consciousness,
that temples change hands and empires will fall,
but you can forever be in the moment
once you hear waves in the traffic caterwaul.

You taught me that happiness is a working goal
and not the resting-place after a lifetime of grief.
You taught me the in-breath can cut through the static
and give meaning to a life so stretched and so brief.

Am I the one you think about
when the skies open
and you expect a storm to take you?
Am I the one you think about
when sheets turn angry
in the sleepless heat of the night?

This partial solidity,
this gulf of an ocean;
words recited by heavy eyes,
the palm reader's devotion.

Am I the one you think about
when elephants drown in the salt-marsh fields
and tears sting your eyes?
Am I the one you think about
when you apply your eyeliner
and mourn your reflection?

This endless question,
this echo of no movement;
lipstick on your glass will bloom,
my sickly, time-lapse delusion.

Am I the one you think about
when the tanks move in
and you go to war with yourself?
Am I the one you think about
when the skies open
to miles of dust and distance?