Separate Rooms

You see me, almost. sometimes
In a dream with you, Leaving school
In nineteen fifty two, dancing
knowing what to be

We don't speak. Like we used to
"seeing the family soon" A mention for the weather
This June, which has been the same
For over a week

It used to be in that look or smile
Not for a while. The jokes
haven't lasted, we only share
our distain

Who is to blame,
These useless connections, lack of respect
Didn't check, memories, swallowed,
Down the rat poison way

Today, we pay for our 'lack of doing' crime
waiting for our time, in separate rooms

United by Screens

In a suburb of boredom I am connected with you
Carricatured, youthful with little we can do
Denied our agency and with lives others don't see
We find each other online, were we exist, you and me
We are are vilified, patronised, compared to their youth
They restrict our access, take our time. They invent the truth
We should have a "real conversation" they say
But we are real and we are talking, our way
We know what we want and we find it online
Electronically connected almost all of the time
Until we can choose our lives, we'll seek to be free
A truer connection and the acceptance of what we see
That we're actually human, able to think and in our teens
We're sharing, we're sociable, we are united by screens

Futures Fall

Sinking words set out to cut
We're in this together but
Tight belts leak loose change
While others lose what their generation will not regain

Schools are forgotten with past promises of repair
With extra money for those with golden stairs
The same doors feel opportunties knock
Rations are offered to every high rise block

Hard decisions, the acceptance of job loss
A wave of worthlessness, new faces lined with a cross
The day darkens on a burden shared by all
Pennies drop and futures fall

A City Centre Restaurant

I imagine having an early night
In a city centre restaurant
Dropping off to the constant
of conversation, nothing about you

Half asleep as those who drank too much
and stayed too long, leave
Deep sleep amongst vague light
The quiet where noise has been

Sun through windows, buds of sound
Empty space within
Walking amongst tables to find the door
The street and the day as before

Application

Each application takes something from you. The first few are special, you check your emails and you wait for the post that never comes. Quiet rejection then becomes normal; you apply with less commitment and become cold to the nothingness that greets your efforts. Time alone is forced upon you in the hours between your old start and your old finish and you notice what you once rushed passed. Your highs and lows also struggle without the restrictions they once felt, taking you to places that keep you going and to places you never want to go again. Simple conversations are hard, you're happy to discuss the state of the world but you stutter an answer to questions once embraced or ignored. What do you do? Reminds you of what you want to do and ruins the answer with truth. Such conversations are avoided, such friends become less involved in this new world of yours, in which you dwell on the remainder of an existence that once knew how to exist. Hope remains, though the months wear away its soft exterior and leave a hard raw material that provides a base to roll you over each morning, most mornings. What's left of you fights the empty space it once filled, looks with uncertainty on the certainty of others and writes another application.

It Wasn't meant to be

It didn't take my fancy or seem to fancy me
So I left it and stayed at home for free

I never got the train, never made it to the cut
I never saw the sunset or told the one I love

I missed the alarm clock, louder in my ear
I missed what didn't hit me and didn't stand for fear

I fought without fighting, I lost without a loss
I fought myself, circled fate with a cross

I forgot the consequences, defied them all
I forgot to hope, took the push and claimed a fall

It didn't seem relevant, didn't call out to me
It wasn't meant to be

He Drove Home

He saw her walking to the car and she smiled as if looking in a mirror. "I didn't buy the grey ones" she said, as she opened the car door, the words taking with them any meaning he thought their relationship had left.