paper

mundane files

Used to feel so easy

write it all out

like spilt ink washing

across a page

or

ants in milk

oh whatever

now there’s cats

in my periphery

snakes

along the side-walls

and that psychic wound

of being here-there

heartbreak of the expat

Returned

like misdirected mail

never quite healed

no one feels

or maybe it’s just

a private burnout thing

yet I’m far

from sanctuary

or even

sanatorium

and the fire

or is it cars swishing by

on a hot evening

far from

a busy road

a capital

a mental load

a buzz

Is that why, cuz

I don’t have ideas anymore

they’re twisted and

unoriginal

the worst

worse than snakes or cats or cars

no imagination

please-

save me

no one published

this shit

anyway

thought my stories were

just OK

and the funny thing is

the poems are

here

while stories suffer

the yearning

the keening

buffer, buffer, buffer

it never ends

-please

Save As

I’m sinking in sunlight

creeping into

the mundane

and driving on the wrong side

in my head

all over again

 

Photo by Dilara Yilmaz on Unsplash

origami

unfold my heart like origami paper

smooth out the creases

where tiny red pebbles catch

in cracks

pitched up by a running track

near my flat

in Zurich

I’m broken open

low-key grief the loss

of runs in the dark

we shared so much

I took it all in didn’t I

does anyone else feel

nostalgia for metal grates

in paths that no one else noticed?

It was mine, mine, mine…  my love

don’t know I could ever

go back

you can’t step in that

same snow twice

oh for a drink

drunk-comfort

an old friend

to avoid

all those things

the fear, afraid, scared and cold

like

I fucked up