I conjure the spirits of my grandfathers. Hold them close as the bearers of the same emotional blocks and strains. See a butterfly. Attribute it to them. Calling for their guidance and tricks of the trade.
Tear up the hill, as soon as I’m away from the house; I burst.
Been bursting all night. Pushed you to tear at me. Same happened before we left. Stomp to Peckham, confused as to how I came to be here, in a union. How I’ve never felt more sorrow than when I’m in one.  See a moth, on the bus stop as I try not to cry. 
It’s underside revealed to me as it rests on the glass.
Not small, that ethereal grey that’s hard to describe. 

Seen them around me, ever since they died.  

But it’s not you. 

You are an upstanding pillar of love in my life. Somehow, in the mess of my own psychosis I severed this tie to you. Confused; lost; spent and craving your touch, I did the unthinkable. Reamed into your misgivings, said I couldn’t rely on you but, it’s a rare partner you can hope will be able to pack for you. 

Compiobbi, Florence. 

Ridiculous pork sandwiches; funny creatures in the brook and views of the industrial estates. History not ours, just visited. 

Lifetime moment upon us and I,

Sat on a rock, sobbed. 

Crawled up the wooded area, past a dilapidated hut. 
Sobbed. 

Mind going crazy, heart breaking. I did it all. I did it all to myself. 

Champagne, coke, no sleep combo nearly wrecked you. Nearly made you puke. 

I pushed and pulled so much, your stomach couldn’t take it.

You saw right through me. You heard my screams from within. 

It crushed me even more on the gravel in my underpants when I heard this. 

Wanted to slice the first layer of my skin with a sharp rock. 

Wanted to make my mouth stop. 

Can’t sleep. Couldn’t. 

Mind wracked with confusion and guilt. 

Were your words true? Is that what I wanted?

I don’t want the thing that would hurt me most. 

I want your love and I want our future.  
The thought of losing you crushed me. The thought of you not needing me, bore a mad thought into my darkest corner. Isolation. Deprivation. 

But I need you. I want you. 

I’m secure. Or I was.

In my youth in my promise in my future. 

Now I look and I think and I grumble. I’m scared, disappointed, frustrated. 

It’s all my choices. I took myself here. 

If you’ll have me, please be next to me while I make the next ones. 

I think

they will be better now. 

Strange head I live in. 

Strange field of numb and doom that shouldn’t need to surface. 

It’s not that big. It’s not that grave. 

It has no purpose now. Especially if it means I lose you,

My Love. 

Seen a Moth every day now. The Grandfathers reigning me in.

Telling me to ‘abide by my light’.

Their mistakes in Love, relationships, parenthood,

will not live in me. 

Praise to the wood, 

that showed me that.

Rocking breeze
Cuckolds the heat.
Paltry lies fade to the back of the spine 
And the neck flops.
Mind like driftwood.

Beyond the tall grass,
Unsettled soul
Crouches.
Not all slip past the hate.
Theirs is the coarse end of the stick.
Wishbone-snapping luck. 
Fair’s only half.

A man’s two lives,
Spawned fratricide.
This fight ends today.

Bludgeoned heart and blackened eye
Perspire over 
The punitive blade 
Made to fit the arm of a man like a glove
Lighter than a sword
Trigger easy on the digit
Not on the will. 
Dark and loaded. 
Self-implosion,
Enemy explosion.

Staggered-ripped-jean-strut,
Purpose built.
There is no safety on this gun. 

Time is no consequence 
For the unaware
But it beats like a punch for the breacher.

Bent on hell 
He heads to the fat cat’s pride. 

The hot hour ticks-
Stopped.
As they collide,
Death pipe 
Between them.

The cat stirs.
Tells his kittens to flee.
Hands out.
Not up
But shaken.

The trees creek.
White knuckle hate, electric.
Eyelids scrunch and try to erase
Inherited pain. 

Mercy winds it’s way round the barrel,
Lowering it to the ground.
The crusade passes.

Tight breath.
Tight fear.

The executioner disappears. 
In his place,   
A man
In front of his brother.