I cut you off,
Like cutting cords
One by one,
By three
Now I’ll never look at neon-lit garages
Without your perfume
Shivering through my neurons –
Haunting me
.
Alone, too old
Wrapped in the smoke of memories
The nights when my DJ was literally a ghost,
Mind-flashes a sigh of long-dead boys;
Blonde hair and eyes as wide as a Nebraska sky
Chewing gum smashed, grinning, between labret-chipped teeth
And wild purple cowboy dreams…
Phones animating in the bliss of Ecstasy-spinning eyes
Clove smoke that swirled
Round the ghost of your tracing fingers –
They wrapped so warm through mine…
When scrolling alien intelligence
Whirled wild across neon blacklit tubes
In a charred-down building:
I know our ghosts haunt the yuppies, now
I miss you
And I miss you already
I saw my shadow –
It still looked 16
.
You pulverised my soul.
I don’t know how anything
Is recognisable
Anymore…
.
So answer me this, B –
Will the DJ ever be a ghost, again?
Should I even want it to be?
You were an asshole
But you were my asshole
Sometimes.
Thanks for ruining my favourite band
Beautiful
Thanks for taking me to that stadium
Sitting on the roof, high above, with…
Sandwiches?
Why?
Who knows
That was the glory of you
Unexpected, luminous, amazing
Awful
Crazy, comforting,
Wild…
Awful?
I’ll never really know
I can sense you here, by the way
I’m not that blind, you know
You think you sneak under the radar
But baby, you don’t – you glow.
If I play that band, will you come back to me?
Spooky chemistry at a distance?
Anything is possible
And raising the dead
Is so much easier
Than moving the living…
.
I miss you…
…but don’t come back.
You aren’t welcome here –
I can love and resent you,
In one singular breath.
You thought that was my weakness
You prayed for my hate
For meltdowns and breakdowns and suicide attempts –
But where you imagined weakness,
You failed to see complexity
So no…
I don’t hate you, B,
You showed me your world
It far out-sparkled mine:
You may have crushed my soul to dust,
But what I do with my memories
Is mine.
You’re loved, but you’re not welcome –
Your memory shines brighter
Than any truth of you.
You taught me
That nothing
Is prettier
Than a lie –
Your bullshit was beautiful
Baby
But it was,
Ultimately
Bullshit.