Write Me Another Milky Way

“Write me another Milky Way,” said paper to pen. “Take me lightyears deep, for when the lights are out and the nights are weary with the wisdom of tomorrow, the sky becomes a cosmic canvas of condiments, salt to taste with extra, extra, extra pepper. And if your blood runs dry, just write me a constellation, verb, adverb and adjective, centuries apart that are sewn with a seamless stroke of cursive. Tell me about the time when Could, Would and Should walked into a bar, and every possibility was thrown in a flux, because words make twisted truths reliable, but darling, is ink on paper indelible.

So write me a story about Moscow, and penguins, and the girl who caught a shooting star, so darkness won’t feel lonely again. I crave a sensuous simile like a stray promise lusts for refuge in utterance. Deck the lines and confines with signs of life or drown me in deliberation, but I pray to you, don’t go easy on the margins because even if you etch a solitary syllable, this show better sell out. Let it run, and don ’t stop till you ache with the regret of giving up too soon, for the lights are still out, and the night is weary with the wisdom of tomorrow. Make me your bride, ‘cause I got a frank face baby, but I can’t write your name so

write me an atom. I await the cold embrace of double trouble, treble and bass on my skin as the nib kneads together cyanide and sunflowers. If you are a wonderer, then tease me with a scribble but if you are a wanderer, kiss me with a chronicle. Write me a sentence, but sentence me right, because every breath not taken longs for the warmth of a voice forgotten, and every forlorn fricative has a lower lip to thank, but every diction needs description, so please.

Don’t leave me blank.”

Cotton Clone

Twenty one days and thirty
strangers later, the
limonene-laced tang that hangs in
this theatre of thread, binds,
unwinds and rewinds
like an itchy insecurity
dignifying dread.

Stitch for stitch, these
tendons tensed on
ankles, toes and false
pretence. Binary births
are bonds of blood, but
we are stitch-fixed sheaths
that endure sweat, grime
and the double-timed rhythm of soles
in symphony.
We are cosy in cleats,
SPF-complete exoskeletons,
basking in the fabric froth of
rinse, spin, wring, repeat.

And yet, twenty one
days and thirty strangers
ago, swimming in a
whirlpool of
detergent-determined broth,
in a world of
dichotomous diversity,
twin togetherness,
distinct dualities,
how is it that
I was left
but you were all right?
You put the sorrow in sibilance.

Quarantined from mixed synthetics,
tumble-dried with shrunk aesthetics,
I lie among the slightly-linted
loose-fitting misfits.
I am a hole-turned-half,
umlaut in a paragraph,
resident of debris in a
perpetrated,
faithfully fractured
symmetry.

I miss the comforting
suffocation of your embrace
as we folded face-to face,
right-on-left-on-indistinguishable.
I miss hanging out in the sun
on the clothes-laden line that
dissolved the green grass from
the red-bled, alabaster linen laundry
in the pink of health.
I miss you, mirror me,
striped blue
facsimile.
Fill this void, forgotten friend
And put me back on feet again.

In Case of Small Talk, Do Not Use The Elevator

Eyebrows furrowed, patience numbed.
Pointy McIndex and Pressy O’Thumb
Tag-team took on the descending arrow button;
Dying dumbwaiters are definitely deaf.

O, Mighty Metal Vessel!
Thy journeys are uplifting
Take me to yonder Lobbyland
No soul on board a’drifting

The Cognizant Container halted with a
diabetic slump, flirting with Uncertainty.
DING! DING! DING!
Schrödinger decomposed nervously.

Ugh.

The parting partition betrayed
a reflection dense, a nightmare grey;
Infidel Elevator did it again.
Beaming, gleaming, sweat-streaming.
“OH, HELLO, 8th FLOOR UNCLE!(!!)”
So pleased to meet you, Bane.

Miffed Lift plunged with a vengeful start;
Time timed out.
O, Saviour Stairway
Redeem me from this lout.

The mezze course is the worst.
“How’ve you been?” “How’s the dog?”
His well-being mattered just more than the fifty fifth decimal place in Pi.
Useless fact: it’s Nine.
Useless-er: His canine.

“WHAT’S UP, YOUNG MAN?!”
Now it was cake.
“All’s well, Uncle! You?”
“OHHH, THE USUAL, HAHAHAHA! YOU?”

Oh.

                        Dear.

                                                Lord.  

“Uhhhh. Good, good.”
“GOOD!”

Clauses pleaded the death Sentence.
Our sadistic, whirring Fan gleefuly cooed.
8th Floor Uncle, Dr. Awk-topus
Stranger to Déjà vu.

Three floors and thirty decades later,
The Quintessential Uncle Trivia had a new champion.
“LIPOSUCTIONS CAN KILL!”
“GOLD IS A SOUND INVESTMENT!”
“Doggy has diarrhoea.”
The walls weren’t much company, either.
Note to self: Stainless steel is full of stains.

AT LAST, AT LAST, DESTINATION ZERO!
Escape kissed my conscience
DING! DING! DING!
Lobbyland beckoned,
Freedom, any second,
But

wait. Wait. WAIT.
The Fourth Wall didn’t allow me passage.
I bolted.
I budged.
I broke down.
Elevator Elvis danced shut.

“FORGOT MY WALLET, HAHAHAHA!

SO,

WHAT’S

UP?”

Passport Photograph

Ten, tawny clones,
seventeen months past expiry.
Elliptical, identical reflections of a different me.
Through the diminutive, paper prison,
the vagrant whiskers of pre-pubescent manhood betray a desperate
requisite for renewal.
Changing phases changes faces.

Behind the glitzy studio front, decked with
matt-finished memoirs of the same family
in forty six different dimensions,
the photographer lazily ushers me into

a chaotic pot pourri of
ill-fitting jackets and equipment-filled brackets,
aggrandizing my agonizing ensemble.
The bespoke blazer and watertight Windsor knot
toil, but fail to
vanquish the unparalleled gravitas of
my creased pyjamas, still unevenly hugging my shins.
I am a dichotomy on bare feet.

Whoooooosh.
Taj Mahal.
Eiffel Tower.
Tulip fields in clinical columns,
complete with two, token birds and one butterfly,
synthetically inserted for back-up beauty.
Backdrop after backdrop,
my world tour grinds to a rusty halt
as a white curtain is dragged into frame. Show time.

Tense spine, angled chin,
parted hair tangled in an orderly mess.
Tilt rightwards.
Lean leftwards;
Neck backwards!
Forwards, we went, commander-soldier,
Every whim in place; then,
the adversity.
My face.

Perspiration beads threaten to inundate
this carefully crafted still.
THWART.
No sweat.
Cheek muscles struggle to equilibrate
a daffy, full-toothed fiesta, with a half dimpled,
measured grin, just enough to distinguish
a profile from a mugshot.
CLIC- FLASH!
Light travelled faster.

Three point five by four point five,
These thresholds harbour lies only whiter than the
stainless background, holding the
perfections within the frame hostage.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
Ten tawny clones.
Replacements dispatched.