After
All the Pubs Close DownSo many faces, their smiles curled round them,
Black creatures and long coats wrapped about
Knowing and thinking they know me,
Speaking in foreign accents thick and cold.
Someone comes representing them,
May I seduce you? and I let him try
Daring those fingers to touch my heart
I twist my body slightly and then turn away.
Staggering ever so slightly beneath my heavy tragedy.
I cannot feel, but open-eyed can stare
Penetrating, beckoning, pretending, lying...
Playing old games I know so well
And once he's caught onto something else,
I close my eyes or look away inside, crying far away
And hard.
Wanting to see through murk
You smiling at me, holding out a hand
If nothing, saying calmly wise, knowingly,
Let us go from here and talk.
But there is nothing; you do not come,
And my dream continues of its own accord,
I am watching myself laughing,
Unintended falseness, at the people's joking.
Amusing themselves with lives I cannot understand,
These people surround me with their welcomes
And let's pretends.
I apologize for being in pain and stuck far beneath some blinding guilt,
Of course, you can't expect me to give what is expected.
They smile in reply, buy me drinks and smokes
Offer umbrellas and walk me home to sweet sickly sleep.
Comatose slug that I am, thank you,
Apology, but, yes, of course now I am happy.
And you do not come. And you do not come!
There is nothing, and something in me continues dying,
I ignore it sometimes pretending —
There I see lightness, feel it glowing, growing on the verge.
I am lying. Maybe not, I don't know.
Music is playing somewhere in my head,
I hear them laughing down the street,
See their silhouettes, arms locked,
I think I can see their fingers crossed from here.
And I can feel the cross on my back maybe there,
I promise myself I won't let it destroy me,
It really is nothing. There is no problem here.
You would probably tell me I was, am, will be.
Happy, of course, but, though you may know me well,
This time you are wrong.
So wrong.
Oh how I wish...I wish I could sleep, waiting
For the room to stop circling around my bed.
Waiting for time to pass, to get somewhere, even be dead.
I find myself drawing away from myself,
Repulsed in unreal time-tick, sucking,
Not even towards death
But in some recognizable fateful abandon, just sucking...
This is me, just going, going away.