Just Enough

I'm an intelligent person with an irrational problem

The place that I live in is flawed .

I believe what people tell me and I hope for the best,

I see what's right but it doesn't come from my hand.

What ever it is, it's stronger than me,

Older, and wiser and bigger than me.

No-one knows what we're thinking

We all hide it so damn well -

All buy it and watch it and follow it too well.

We talk budgets and buildings,

Politics plays at living while life stands slowly still.

Non-uniform wearers have so much in common:

Colour palates and plastic wrapped lunches,

Yet none of it quite fits, quite right. Just left.  

All the trays piled up are wet; soiled just a little.

Reused, recycled, refreshed just enough -

Enough to stack up and step on, stand tall as we can:

Bruised, used and damaged here, still.

… anybody there?

Not a good time?

It's never me

Always them

Voicemail and I'll call you back

Seven missed calls but still no word

Busy lives breed busier friends

Moments passed should be moments held

Trying to hold on to compliments

Forgetting everything; Nothing left

An empty room and a night bus full of people

Cold hard stairs lead the way I've known before.

Calling out softly

Never making a fuss

A text at your next convenience

Until then I’ll be fine.

Skin

Itchy skin,

Painful scratches

Single hairs sensitive to every movement.

Frustrated screams that shout nothing but silence,

And scratch me. Go on, you’ll feel better.

-       I’ll go.

 Itchy skin

Freckles pulsating,

Sound echoing from every touch.

Acute dips in temperature that only I can feel,

Goading me to pick. Go on, you’ll feel better.

-       I’ll go.

Skin itching

Teeth clenching

Moisture leaves my mouth

And the urge bubbles through my brain:

Go on. You’ll feel better.

-       I’ll go.

But you don’t do you!

You’re the only one who never leaves, never lets me go;

Never walk, run or swim alone

Without your breath on my neck

Whispering: Go on, you’ll feel better.

Daffodils

I'm up three years of cards at two and a half quid a go,

And thirty pounds worth of flowers weigh heavy in my heart.

Empty vases and card-less mantles, this is what I’ve gained,

Years of homemade presents collect dust and lose their glitter.

Memories of daffodils and breakfasts in bed

Line my tears with clouded pictures, pierce my guarded, stiff resolve.

Cuddles over songs, roast potatoes dipped in wine,

Chinking clinking forks on china, scrap their love from plate to plate.

Pressed up against a window, no glass; just a bar,

On looking on the very thing I crave so very much.

Desperate to say my thank you. Pleading for the chance,

Surrounded by complacence, ignorant to such a loss.

Your mother gave you everything:

Your life, your love, your law of all.

Tell her today what she means to you

And remember that tomorrow she could be gone.

  

Signs

I’m trying to remember the last time it wasn’t this hard,

When was I last not tired, too exhausted to find a way.

I’m trying to remember the last time I was sure,

When I knew, without a doubt, what was black and what was white.

I write my name in a book to prove that I was here.

Keep counting pages and wages, changing ages every day.

Shadows fall across the table where I sit and not write,

Right time, right place,

Wrong me, wrong head-space.

Going home, going no-

Where everybody thinks they know my name.

But it’s not so easy as eight little signs

Because my eyes tell tales that words never will.

Evidence

Names and dates, do you understand me please?

Colours and clothes, you understand me yes?

Two different plains, different energies around us

A room full of pain and the heaviest of hearts.

Hands clenched in hope, begging to be next.

Please come through, please be here,

Do you understand me? Please?

Help us to hope. Let us feel the proof

And hear someone else's voice say things only they would.

Searching, scanning. Hopefulness drains to despair:

Screaming for you to whisper just once more in my ear.

We don't take no's but that's all that I've got

On the edge of no-where where nothing makes sense,

Make me understand you. Please!

I'm running out of energy, can't feel hers at all

Because I gave her up and I let her go.

I didn't try to stop her, just watched her leave and said goodbye.

I never called her back, didn't beg her to stay.

I was too tired to try, too empty to hope.

Too proud to stop and cry, too ‘ard to admit the truth.

Maybe she waited to see if I needed her; I did,

But chose not to, covered my face and carried on.

Now it's too late, she's been gone too far.

Too missed too long, too cold for her to stay.

I’m the boy who never cried wolf, the girl who didn't cry:

Wiped my face and smiled on, fought on, thought on.

But now it's here: a wolf at my door,

Tears in my heart with nowhere to fall.

Do you understand me please?

Do you understand me?

The Sad Truth

Ben, 40s, reasonably attractive, well spoken.

Ben:

Chocolate cake with chocolate sauce, what does that say about our host?

We’ve all heard that women use chocolate as a substitute for sex. I think a more accurate comment on the matter would be that after a while, chocolate becomes not the substitute for sex but the reason you’re not having it in the first place.

I need to be physically attracted to my partner – let’s be honest, we all do. You can tell me looks are only skin deep as much as you like but, isn’t the skin an integral part of the human make up and therefore rather important in the grand scheme of things?

You wouldn’t buy a rusty car would you? Beauty may well be in the eye of the beholder but rust is rust, there’s no getting away from it! It’s a sad truth but there it is.

That’s why, when you are first getting to know somone you are not you, you are your representative; the best version of you. The truth will come out eventually, always does. It sounds counter-romantic but loving someone, for a long time, is all about knowing the very worst things about that person, the annoying things, the things that make you shudder in the street when you even think about them, things you didn’t even notice at first, and finding a way to ignore it all.  Its not glamorous, its just tolerance.

And that’s why people cheat…… I haven’t. Yet. Thought about it? Yes, and I would, if, I knew I could get away with it, that nobody, no-one, would get hurt… then yes, absolutely. And I’d challenge anyone who says they wouldn’t – they are simply not being honest with themselves. We’re all the same, dying for excitement and in the cold light of day after day after day, after day, monogamy gets boring.

It starts off great. You meet the woman of your dreams, who’s like no one you’ve ever met before and fall in helplessly love.  You have wild and passionate sex (for 8 months to a year) until the time comes when you become acutely aware that she’s probably the best person you’ve ever been with and if you don’t marry her she’s likely to walk away.

Now you have to think about mortgage payments and matching curtains, and suddenly the incredible woman you thought you’d die without, is starting to blend in amongst the ivory and the beige in your living room.  And one day, when the conversation has well and truly run out, and you don’t know what else to do, the only way to escape the monotony is to have a couple of kids. And that’s is, you’re well and truly done; no more surprises, no more excitement, just everything in its place, all the time. Life becomes predictable, regimented; I have a wife, two children and a schedule.

Scarlett’s nine and on Mondays I pick her up from string quartet practice at 5.40 while my other half takes Max to cubs, he’s seven. Tuesday Scarlett has brownies, which the Mrs helps run, so I’m in charge of dinner, bath and bed for Max. Wednesday they both have swimming lessons and on Fridays Scarlett has gymnastics which Max likes to go and watch so I get to have a drink after work. I can squeeze in two and a half pints and still get home in time for our Friday night take away.

I coach the local under 9s on a Saturday – for which Max is the reserve goal keeper, not quite good enough but a real trier. Then, if the Red and Whites are at home we go to the game and watch them lose more often than not. I got Max his season ticket for his fourth birthday, but if I tell the truth he doesn’t seem that interested.

Saturday nights is family film night and my turn to do dinner. Sausage casserole and mashed potato is my gourmet specialty.

Most Sundays the wife takes the kids to church with her mother and I get in a round of golf. I used to play of 8 before the kids were born but now my handicap is round about 15.

The kids go to bed early on Sundays and if she gets the ironing done and there’s nothing on telly, and we’re not too tired, so do we if I’m lucky!

I know it doesn’t sound like anything special, its not, but we have a good life. We have two nice holidays a year and the kids go to a good school. We eat well, drink well and live well.

Am I madly in love? No. Not anymore.

Am I happy? For the most part, yes. I’m content. And so is she.

We make each other content and that’s “okay”. Its been enough to get us through the last 13 years, I assume it’ll get us through a few more.

We get on well most of the time, our tastes aren’t so dissimilar. We both quite like university challenge, and Italian food. We’ll never agree on a radio station in the car but we don’t argue.

And we still have sex, sometimes … more than most as I understand it. So I don’t complain… too much. It doesn’t take long. We know all the short cuts and preferences that make it more like a strategic maneuver than a romantic communion of bodies.

Sometimes I wonder if she feels the same. I assume that because we have a good life, decent house, nice things that she’s as ambivalent to romance as I am. Don’t get me wrong, I get her a card on Valentines day, and so far (touch wood) in 13 years I’ve never been caught out by our anniversary.

I’ve never been one for romance. The last romantic thing I did for her, really romantic, Hollywood style romance was surprising her with a trip to Paris three weeks before we got engaged. I knew she’d think I was gonna propose and when I didn’t she was livid. I could see the sheer disappointment in her whole body from her eyes to her elbows.

Two weeks later, on a Wednesday over a chicken chow mien and a cheap Pinot Grigio, I finally popped the question, and surprised wasn’t the word.

[Laughs]

We should do that again. Probably wouldn’t work now though. Things are different. Love changes, it normalizes. And I’m okay with that. We should probably make more of an effort to spend time just the two of us, but our baby-sitters keep finishing school and going to university.

We do go to book club on the second Thursday of the month, although its should really be called wine club for all the reading we get done. It’s nice to be around adults for the night and pretend we are still modern and ‘hip’.

[Laughs].

I’m not a big reader and I prefer a cold Guinness to a glass of shiraz but book club is my guilty pleasure for a different reason.

[Pause]

Amanda Shepherd. Single mother of Alfie, four and Daisy two and a half.

She is divine.

[Pause]

She’s got short red hair that falls across her face when she laughs and the kind of figure that says she’s a woman who enjoys life to the full but still cares about how she looks; all curves and nail polish. She’s got a little scar just here, under her chin, and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, just imperfect enough to make her perfect.

I have this dream where we are together and I’m kissing that scar and it tastes like nothing I’ve ever tasted.

[Pause]

I woke up the other day and Max had come into our room crying He’d had a bad dream……..and I tell him what I tell myself: it was just a dream.

I wouldn’t risk what I’ve got, which is real, which is okay – it is, for something that doesn’t really exist.

I remember that nervous, butterfly feeling, it was great… it was exciting. But suppose I’ve got security instead. And that’s better I think.