I didn't see you today

I didn't get to see you today;
I missed you in the corridors
and on the pavement
where we once met under
autumn trees. The sun was gold
and old and beautiful, throwing
a blanket of calm
over what was to be chaos
which would only quieten
under suppressed anger
and sadness whilst
I walked down empty
dreaded corridors I knew
all to well, is where you dwell
and so I ducked out of sight
of the familiar shuffle
and hoped not to be seen.

Maybe that's why I didn't see you
today in the corridors
or on the pavement
where we once met because
the trees were now in winter
and the sun was dampened
and dead, like the musings
of this lost child
who lost at the game and is
at a loss for words.

To Those We Lost

In time there were those to be lost
to time and space
and memories which vanish
into the thin air of mind
and then there were those
to be remembered
at the back of the mind
who reserve themselves
a seat behind the mind's eye
but are not any more
than your own memory
of the real one
which once existed
before your very eyes
but now do not and only
exist in the horizon,
out of sight.

Tides die slow

Children speak like ghosts,
their words soft and subtle
under sheets and covers
where feverish hands play host.

I'm Afraid of Crossing Your Path

I'm afraid of crossing your path...

...it quivers like fear in the dark light.
It wasn't always like that when times
were different. But, things have
changed in the child's half cries.

The Anti-climax

Boys and girls sat in rows
in hundreds
with pencils and
a ticking clock up front
ticking away time.
It's all disappearing -
self and thought,
they go into the light
shining harshly overhead.
Like children they sit
where no child should be
first thirty, twenty
then ten
more minutes
and then it ends
in an anti-climax
not representative of
the weeks and months
or day before.
But anyway it ends,
no one speaks
or thinks
and then they let us go
and we leave.
Men and women
walk through the door
and it's dark outside
so putting on our coats
we walk home
mind more restful
but burden none the more
lifted.

Countering Facts

The sun was beating down on the apartment on a Sunday afternoon. It made the sofa scorching hot and my glass of water sickly tepid. I wasn't doing much, just lying on that sofa, feeling just as tepid about life as that glass of water.


Too much conflict in the head. Too many regrets in life. Too many words left unsaid.


I learnt about regret in Cognitive Psychology; it's called counterfactual thinking. The words 'counterfactual thinking' is almost self-explanatory - it is thoughts which counter facts (duh) - about things which did not happen, but yet we wished had happened.


With counterfactual thinking, we'd consider the possibility that there were other paths we could have gone down had we done something differently. Maybe we could have rephrased something we said or taken ten seconds less to tie our shoelace as we were leaving to catch a train. Maybe...maybe...maybe...


Obviously, and unfortunately, you only consider all this in hindsight, so by then it would have been too late to have done anything.


Yeah...maybe you shouldn't have bothered to tie your shoelaces this morning...

...or said those words you said. Maybe you should have chosen to say something else or not say anything at all.


Feeling a little silly now, aren't we, spending so much time thinking about things which haven't happened. But yet we still play this stupid game with ourselves and by ourselves. We wish we could forget but it plays around and around in our heads like a broken tape recorder with OCD tendencies.


Before you know it, the sun had gone down and you're left on a couch which, by now, has braved enough heat to stay warm for the rest of the night. Too bad that's the only comfort you have as you're left with the hangover of a whirring, worried head..


The water is still tepid; you feel like shit; I will keep playing that broken tape recorder.

Tread Carefully

In a room covered by memories,
a lamp lights a corner
revealing stones and dust,
shards of glass
waiting to be trodden on.
And then there comes the feet
bare and white
which find their way
onto this battlefield of your hurt,
turning toys into ghosts
and smiling photos
to pictures on obituaries and headstones
stark white with death and loss.
So honey, tread carefully within this space
for there is nothing for you here...
...just what needs forgetting
and what needs letting go.


"Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams."