Turn around where possible.

My heart complicates the situation,

It takes the fourth exit on the roundabout into the half finished construction site,

As it wants to see something new, something being built.

It goes three exits too far on the motorway,

The long way round, makes sure it’s tired and can rest.

It works triple shifts and long hours, it takes pictures of you and turns them into perfect daydreams, it refuses to be unemployed.

My hands are so restless,

They find themselves clicking out words on a digital chalkboard describing in infinite detail the ways I would love you,

They roll cigarettes and order alcohol and do whatever they can to distract from the fact that they should be creating something new,

But they write these words that never help, they just complicate, obfuscate, turn passion into tension. And then tension into confusion.

But by god can they turn a tune out, order nonsense on the internet, remember spellings of obscure words I’ve not written in a decade.
They’re a beautiful burden.

My feet ache,

Pushing this tired frame down on size eleven pale white masses of bone,
that shuffle this husk from
place to place, bar to bar,

That dance and sway in the dead of night.

That carry you home when you’ve drunk too much or drive you home when I’ve not drunk enough.

That would run to you until the bones fragment,
until the blisters make my eyes water,
until I’m hysterical with agony,
and still they would take me to you.
They would never let me crawl.

Turn Around Where Possible.

I think I’m ready.

I think I’m ready to try again.
I think I’m capable and worthy of love.
But it’s hard.
When your plenty of fish are in a dried up pool.
When the tinder has been snuffed,
And the bees in your bumble have no wings.

I wish I had the capability to extend myself in social situations,
To catch your eye across the bar,
To strike up a conversation,
But my hands are shaking and trembling like a San Francisco car park
In the height of earthquake season.

I clam up like oysters
While searching for pearls.
You are so beautiful
And I am so broken.
But
I AM CAPABLE OF LOVE.
I have a lot to give.
Repeat.
I have a lot to give.
REPEAT
I have a lot to give.
I do.

But how the hell are you supposed to know?
When I’m staring at the ground,
Wringing my hands,
Avoiding the monumental elephant
In the smallest room.

I’m ready to try again,
But first
I must learn to try.

Popular Mechanics for Grief

It came today.
The tidal wave that I was expecting.
Though I wasn’t expecting the magnitude,
the latitude and longitude,
of grief
to come so quickly,
like the train
that I nearly caught today.

I’ll tell you the truth mum,
I’m not doing very well.
Everything is too noisy
and every few minutes I think I hear your voice.
I went to the supermarket yesterday
and every aisle I looked for you,
it’s a habit.
Just another one that I have to kick.

There’s so much more I wanted to tell you.
And so much more I could have achieved,
I feel like I fell behind on life’s treadmill,
and I wish I could have been more for you.
There’s a lot of loose parts rattling around
in this tin man brain of mine.
And I’m going to write them all here.

The Tinder Diaries

I’ve steered clear of Dating Sites for my entire life and always held a particular distain for the King Of The Dating Sites: Tinder. I’d called it a meat market, a horrendously shallow, simplistic, binary decision making cesspit. But after my burning car wreck of an attempt at a love life through 2018, I decided to take the plunge. I know there’s bumble and other things now (I only found out about that through Tinder) and I feel like the kid that signed up to MySpace 2 weeks before Facebook took off, I’m late to the game, I’m aware.

Also another caveat before I go any further, I know I’m not a conventionally attractive bloke. Most of the time I dress like a Lumberjack or Bruce Springsteen, my hair’s on its way out and underneath my eyes are a pair of bags so baggy because of all the fucking shit and drama they’re carrying. My personality does a lot of heavy lifting for my face, I’m not Photo Atrractive. It’s cool. Nonetheless I fired off into the abyss and decided to go swiping.

So the Tinder app got installed on the weekend of my birthday. Went to London with Mum and Dad to visit some friends. Dad his mate and I went to Wembley to watch the Football, 1-0 Spurs 91st minute, Christian Eriksen. The scenes. Got mighty pissed and decided to see who was about. In a drunken stupor the little red tinder icon ended up on my iPad homescreen.

Back at the hotel. Swipe swipe swipe. You’ve run out of swipes! The fuck? Suddenly this Dating App has turned into some strange Candy Crush lives type scenario and then all these in app purchases were available. I went to bed that night and thought nothing of it. Middle of the night, PING PING PING, the little red flame icon had woken me up in the night to tell me that I had all these likes and I should swipe to try to get a match. But I was out of lives! It started telling me to do Gold or Premium or some other package that all just sounded like an Overwatch Loot Box but instead you get more chances to try to find a mate who could someday be your life partner and bear your children.

So, yes, woke up in the night, saw the aforementioned anonymous likes, bought the Tinder Gold Package which apparently gets me unlimited likes, 5 super likes per day, the opportunity to see who likes me, all for one whole month (plus 2 new limited edition outfits, an extra level, and an mp3 copy of the soundtrack).

The women that liked me were decent! I matched a few back and sent some fairly innocuous exploratory messages. I was slightly tired and did a super like on a girl that I didn’t super like because I didn’t know what all the buttons at the bottom did, she matched me back eerily quickly seeing as it was 3am, managed to style out a conversation that petered out fairly rapidly because she was boring as fuck. But lovely and very polite. But dull as a post.

So yeah I’ve realised a few things. When you apply a video-game style loot box mechanic to a Dating site it’s like fucking cake for me, like catnip, like caffeine. So I went balls deep in Tinder.

I matched with a girl I already knew, I super liked her because I legit do super like her. We chatted a lot. I enjoy speaking to her, she has her own opportunities and stuff right now and she should follow her heart and go see the world again.

I realise I have a thing for Vets, like people who fix animals. They also all seem to be really pretty and people who look after other people or animals are fucking saintly souls who should be adored. I have a good few vet matches and animal chat is the fucking best.

I’ve notoriously always been shit at moving from chat into a physical date and that’s proving to be the case again here, I don’t take the plunge, I should be more assertive. But I’m not, but I will be. 2019 I’m going to start saying ‘yes’ again.

It’s given my confidence a bit of a boost though, a little spring in my step some days when I’ve absolutely needed it. The £20 I spent for a month of engaging with people in a fun and quirky setting was well worth it. I’ve stuck more in the bandit in an hour. I don’t see myself renewing the gold package though, I don’t need Dating on an industrial scale. I don’t need to see everyone that likes me. I’d prefer to go fishing with a rod, and not with a trawler. Nonetheless it’s nice to be ‘liked’ sometimes, and you never know, just one ‘like’ starts a conversation. Conversations are good for people.

Thx for reading.

“Don’t” as a describing word.

Don’t give too much of yourself.
Dont’t send more than one message at a time.
Don’t tell them how you really feel.
Don’t overanalyse.
Don’t force it.
Don’t tell yr friends or family about it until you’re in a relationship.
Don’t admit yr upset.
Don’t obsess.
Don’t show signs of weakness.
Don’t talk about yr flaws.
Don’t admit to feelings.
Don’t stress it.

Just Don’t.

Not for me, for you.

I know you’re scared. I read between the lines.
You’re scared you’ve made a decision that you can’t reverse.
You’re scared you’ve given too much away,
You’re scared that you were fooled, hoodwinked, deceived.
I know because I’ve been there.
I’ve walked in those shoes,
Carried that cross,
Lived that life.

And it’s fucking terrifying.
And I just want the best for you,
Not necessarily what’s best for me.

I know you’re confused, I can see it in your words.
Confused how things changed so fast,
How it went from 100 down to 0,
Confused why you’re spoken to like that.
I know because I’ve heard those phrases,
Walked those halls,
Suffered that fate.

And I hate to see you like this.
And I wish you’d let it all out,
For you, and not for me.

But I want you to know,
That it’s not too late.
To go back to the soft days,
When your messages would shake slumber from my eyes,
And paint wide grins across my tired face,
And send us off into the day happy.
Not necessarily for me, but for us.

There is still some time.
To go back.

Green Circles

Every half an hour, every day, you’re online. Green circles next to a tiny picture of your pretty face.

And I wonder who you’re talking to, because it certainly isn’t me.

Last online 3m ago.

And my message is still unread. Like a piece of junk mail piled up behind a door in an empty house. A cheque left uncashed. Old clothes still with their tags.

And I tried. I HAVE TRIED to be chill. To let it all wash over me. But today I’m sick and all I want is to hear from you.

I tried.
I tried.
I tried
I cried.
I tried.
I tried.
I’m tired.

Tonight, I feel like I’m worth more.