CONCRETE_OLYMPUS_

a cold English autumn morning says  the  day can be just this  just sitting in morning clothes on unwashed skin bare armed and sockless sitting in the cold and feeling it meet  the body’s warmth the cold mug and the warm coffee leaves yellow  no call to arms like a summer morning  no fear you’re having less fun no ambition more  than another cup

this boarded up tower led to by concrete stairs with discarded black balloons and a dead rat was built by young minds  in old heads see I was born in the future  when the now was space, electricity and lasers it was tomorrow  loading pixel by pixel from a frail cassette see they stopped showing rocket launches when the rockets exploded and cynicism and grit returned when the future became ridiculous and now utopia is caked in dirt, tags, beer dregs and party balloons  see im looking up from a bus stop sat with people who saw this built more than fifty years ago and thirty years since this was nothing else but the other side of opportunity is longing and regret seems we’re not ready for the new that we only know how to respect empire give us cloud cover and we’ll piss, rob and get high and so now the utopians are unapologetically dystopian and leaving for mars

  all I had was a hot shower the luxury of steam clouding the cold damp orange bathroom with a towel waiting for me that never dried down the hall was a bedroom  a garret in a cut up house with a broken window which the cold air poked its fingers through a bed a desk and a chair where I sat with lonely sad pornography and a printed photograph of a love whose visa had expired the hint of a creative career behind me and now more unnecessary education a poorly paid job and a sad mother dropping a sad man back there was no reason to leave the shower the timeless warm comfort the simplicity of soap and skin and a task we can all get right to turn off the tap and watch the steam fall like a needle lifting off a record and returning to crackle to let the cold air back in this is where I was when the text came a two part text that stopped me still it said I was going to be a dad and I knew this wasn’t good enough

wrappers in a landfill  slowly unscrunching chrysalises 80/20 air and plastic chirruping waste in the haze waking up the meadow became a dump the dream was unwrapped and the packet bobs in the toilet bowl

  I’ve not got thinner I can’t use the word thinner anymore I’m just trying harder to wear old clothing but my old duvet lumps still sag under thin skin a determined middle-aged barrel no longer filled with beer but still undeniably youthless love handles  and lust bumpers I’m not fat  but my bones have hand bags filled with nothing but air clumsily taking up cupboard space  with their misshapen slump hold me but don’t grab a hold of me don’t kneed my belly with little fists only look at me front on allow me to try the medium remind me to appreciate this flesh today because it has an agenda of its own

  I’ve searched for this feeling with drugs, alcohol, music and sex but here  right now this big white jelly fish floating in the sea with his sons by his side the world in a bag in the sand beautiful oblivious strangers all around and the sun burning our round shoulders to remind us that this can only be a moment

What now becomes a sobering thought?  I remember my first head rushes from nicotine and poppers and a jelly fish imploding through my eyes Weed shrunk me down to a stone submarine searching through my blood Acid threw me out of my body into boneless low tides Cocaine rushed too fast ahead of me and my well thumbed fiver Ecstasy filled my body with a glittering gas from another atmosphere, gifting me a personality Ketamine buried me in a carpeted six foot grave Magic mushrooms connected me to everything but my self But then alcohol became the thing that ingested me Driving its cordycep tendrils and walking me around - Convincing me that it was my feet always on the ground   Now the home owner is always home  Fumbling for fillings or a new hello Approaching sobriety like an addict