Did you think that we would go the distance?
Uncoil this barbed wire from around our hearts and carve
initials into each other's palms like a timely love-brand?
Are you surprised, that all has ricocheted across this
frozen landscape? your eyes widen in disbelief
but it doesn't change, the throb of cathartic disappointment
echoing woefully, rattling around inside your head like
loose change. You measure out your years in
mounting regrets, but they're too often confused with
Learning Experiences, differ only in the acrid curl of
lasting impression, a bile-hate for all humanity, a wild
thrashing of the soul in oxygenless air, socket-eyed
careering like a slow-motion car-chase, only the crash
is not inevitable & you feel guilty when you choose it
Over the broad beds of flowers and roll-out lawn
The marriage of your discontent, its children
all in garlands gripping inconsolate, somewhere
beyond the fingerpainted skies a clap of thunder shakes your
inner eye & you quiver but no-one else hears it
& you've possibly gone mad at this stage anyway
So it's unikely you'll be listened to, heard, or even
noticed. Later you sprawl spent on Whitman's own leaves
tracing the arcs of a tortured regret around & around
behind your eyes, but whichever way up it stands
you are alone & that is relief like water over your head.

'I am a different person now', you say
but the mirror screams back the same face & you suspect -
if not know - that this day will be full of mirrors
you will cross them & run like a maniac, forget your
usual expression and let the craziness out by mistake
The days will start to crumble like so many other
emblems of fortitude; you will notice, but with the
casual impotence of a true stranger & so your life
slips further beyond the brink.

You linger at the water's edge, you are poised
but the reflections rattle you & before you know it
you've cast those ripples as the prophylactic of your own
frozen scream and run reified into another dimension
Where there is no water, nothing beautiful to
accuse you of not noticing.