The struggle was short-lived:
We gave up even before we began.
Or, at least, that was the plan.
But we were born too young
for resignation
to come as easy as all that.
There's a subtlety to living
A coloured strand that we have missed
So we cover the sombre walls of the past
with monochrome tapestries.
And we do not sigh
And we do not turn
And our forty-proof sunblock doesn't let us burn.
So we're all half-baked
One side well-done
[Beginning to blister in the ozone-free sun]
And we ransom our air with conditions galore:
We turn it up high and we call it a cure.
The word is old now
Old, bent, tattered;
Much handled, worn smooth at the edges.
It is tired now
and sometimes confused;
Forgetful.
It drops out of our mouths
heavy as a corpse,
sinking like stone
falling flat to the ground
like a juicy suicide.
We, faithless lovers,
have caressed the word.
We have flung it,
tossed it high into the air
and failed
to catch it.
We, who have failed,
failed before trying.
We, who have failed
to make the attempt.
It is only words that we can fling
so bravely into the void.
We have broken faith
and the word is suicidal
with the mad joy of liberation.
The word is unhinged
the word is free.
And we have sold ourselves for a pittance:
An orange seed.
Not even the acerbic, firm, thick, orange skin in the hand.
Merely the promise of it/ satiation.
We do not own the earth to plant it
A dearth of dirt
that no words can compensate.
What we have we cannot state;
What we lack we dare not declare.
Suspended between the here and there
Hung (out to dry) in thin air.
Three sheets to a departed/absent wind.
And we tilt our pistachio-green scooters
kick-start them in one fluid motion
and sputter off into the future.
