Weird and awkward, odd and strange;
a set of quirks as broad as a mountain range.
Never really fit in but can’t seem to fit out –
what, really, is fitting all about?
If I can’t fit here, there, now or then,
will I fit somewhere – and if so, when?
Yes, yes you will – the “when”, I can’t say,
but when you fit with yourself,
you’ll be well on your way.
I could have said it, but I didn’t. I should have said it, but I didn’t. I would have said it…but I didn’t.
As a result, I find myself full of coulds, shoulds and woulds instead of the contentment their removal would have assured me.
It still feels somehow as if that feeling is only an arm’s length away, although when I remember to drink my daily/weekly/bi-annual dose of reality, I’m reminded that the distance between this current version of myself and what could have been is actually much greater.
“Help” shouldn’t feel like such a difficult word to say.
Lately I’ve been dreaming that it isn’t.
The phone rang yesterday as I sat on the verandah in the sun. It could have, it should have, it did.
My dreams are all torn from my own “Choose Your Own Adventure” book – a mess of scattered pages with surrealist illustrations.
Love isn’t the same
as cold fingers creeping
under the edge of your shirt
looking for warmth in a back alley behind a bar
half-smoked cigarettes dotting the ground
thrown down in the fog of smoke
when a craving for skin to skin contact
overpowers the lust for nicotine.
Love isn’t the same
as a body pressed against grimy brick
in the darkness
allowing foreign hands and tongues to explore
what once was sacred.
Love isn’t the same
as an empty bank account
overdrawn so a few more shots of vodka
could erase the taste of a stranger,
blur the image of them
into a watercolour painting in your mind
that looks more like the landscape
of your past
than like the face of a shadow
you’d stopped in the night to ask
“Will you love me?”
“Will you love me?”, you’d asked
with a kiss you’d try to rinse
from your memory
with mouthwash and tears
in the morning.
Love – it isn’t the same.
Just Little Green Buttons 