New Poem For Old Plasters

"We don't talk about love,
we only want to get drunk."-- msp

so the Manics song—the one that could have been our story
if our story had been much longer—came on and I sat on my

underused balcony where you smoked in the rain and watched
Swansea’s skyline for the length of a song, long enough for a lump

to travel from my throat to my stomach and watched the august
mist-- it was November then-- and shook my head. it’s a shame, really.

that no one comes up here. It’s a good view but I need company to
enjoy it. so I've never quite done the deep-breath-in-and calm down

that a good view is supposed to give.

that’s what the cigarettes were supposed to do?
calm you down, right?
you went through so many packs in your yellow room with it’s

candles and liters of Strongbow I was happy to help you with but
ultimately the fags were on a long list of things that were going to

hurt you. I hesitate to put myself on that list; I wrote you a good
poem-- not this one-- and bought you breakfast and tried not to

ever let you see how scared I was, especially that night
when it was too late for nothing to happen and

we polished off two more cans and
you told me about the razors.