And my friends believe in me too much

i believe that i have already been given all the love i can expect in this lifetime

i have been given more than others, less than some

i keep the pieces in a bag in my wardrobe

and last weekend i had to decide if i should take them with me to my new house

i decided not to, put a note on the bag saying 'please don't throw out,' 

then changed my mind and folded it gently into my suitcase

to sit in someone else's wardrobe for a few more years. 

and exactly what the fuck am i supposed to do with this, 

the only physical proof i have left

that i was loveable, once. maybe twice

flimsy little things that will rot over time, 

and one day i'll have to stop carrying them around

i could throw them out, and i guess i'd be free

but i'd rather be captive

you

walking home with my face half melted i tell myself

write a list of every sign you were given. i tell myself

there's a current that ends at my fingertips

and you're wired different. i tell myself

i fret over my walk, my face, my hair,

soaking up the seconds before i get to see you

(to be honest that feels better than seeing you.) 

but

don't we look nice together?

it's fine if you walk me to the door

i can dream it different

believe that it is

"i'm addicted to remembering, like some idiot oracle."

the summer has not passed like i thought it would, in many ways - but anyway:

an evening in the gardens even though i swore off them
i raised my voice and twenty people came 
three picnic rugs and two christmas champagne bottles

i lay down on my stomach alone at the start, 

took my glasses off and everything oozed into soft focus
'does that happen to you often?' in my notebook
remember the words at which my heart lifted its head
for the first time in a hundred years
and back away again, overflowing

licking paint and how it lingers for days on my hands
kneeling pains and loose-fitting jeans and my thin weak nails
i'm packing up all my clothes, writing those terribly sad piano songs
that no-one really likes, but i like them, and that's enough for now

two middle fingers in the air as i walked out the door on new year's eve
at 11.30PM.

the memories make me sick,
i'm addicted,

but i refuse to go down that way

this will not be the thing that kills me

(that's worrying, that's what that'll be)

Let's sit in absolute silence in a hot car

everything is fine

i am, as normal, crying in the car

driving out of my way to hear the end

filled up with something to preoccupy me

i hate talking about myself 

unless it's about all the things i've fucked up

then we can laugh about it, i do

i am not very interesting. 

i do this, and that's it. 

and if this doesn't work out, 

i don't have a plan b

i prefer the not knowing.

well, happy new year

i know it's stupid

but now you know it, 

and we can forget it

i dreamt that strangers went and filled all your rooms

and i guess now they will