Tinder
I remember
that first night we met,
smoking with you
on the doorstep
amongst the broken furniture,
the bottles and bed frame
that littered your garden.
Then, from nowhere,
you spoke about setting it all on fire,
and I knew
I wanted to fuck.
and like rabbits
in headlights, we froze
watching on as the bouncer
bloodied his knuckles
on the face of
a once mouthy man
in his mid 30s
So it was ID at the ready
just in case he was the kind
not to need an excuse
I went first,
both to get it out the way,
and to make sure nobody
bottled it before we got in,
It was a quick, polite
and insignificant experience,
like a first fuck
with much less planning
and a lot more nerves,
but then it was done,
we had made it.
We were in.
I am not just the fading definition
of my abdominal muscles
I swear there
there used to be six of them
I am not just the collection of ink
buried in the second layer
of my skin,
and no
I don’t regret them
but that doesn’t mean
I love them all
I am not just the colour of my hair
or the lack of my hair
or my glasses
or the fact I wear glasses
or the fact that
without my glasses
the world is nothing more than a blur
I am not just my job
what the hell is
a Warranty Analysis Technician anyway?
and how the hell did I become one?
I am simply, me.
Bank Holiday Isolation
My t-shirt reads “choose life”
while I swig relentlessly
on a can of Carling
my first of the day,
and I already know
there will be more to follow
“It’s bank holiday Friday!”
I tell myself
“It’s allowed”
lighting a cigarette
as I turn up the music
for this party of one.
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