#quicksomething

comments aligned behind

the paper’s cage,

You stay safe in the liminal,

the paper’s way 

to say ‘Don’t write here -

I think about you, often. As habitually but unthinkingly as I turn off lights in the house. 

An old text message reopens that space that was once bright and alive between us. Like some kind of sci-fi flat pack, your few words, whether friendly or hostile, make any room feel larger, and more than anything that is in front of me, here you are. 

Though as fast as digital, or as fast as a morning’s newspaper can shout LONDON IS BURNING, come evening, it is then the papier-mâché stuck to a man’s shoe as he walks past the supermarket in the rain. 

What I mean to say is, these memories don’t hassle or tug. I cut the cable tie and watched the pages fall into the wet, the images transferring nothing onto the pavement. Scandal is washed into the gutters, old messages become a phone’s strata. 

I don’t see the harmful or the sad. 

I think when I roll you over in the middle of this beautiful restaurant,

I’ll find woodlice.

I’ve pieced out our conversation

from the odd bits of floating driftwood

but watch the structure, 

damp and moaning, 

cast ripples 

pronounced 

as those napkin swans. 

My laughter happens - stiff as

shoelaces, 

so I watch your fork muddle through,

the meal of fish, 

and plan,

How I will snap you open,

Your neck, burst

like a kid’s wishbone - 

but I’d probably then

wish to be left alone,