The wooden floor was shiny
and squeaked when you walked
across it in your new white takkies.
 
*

You were cranky as a loan shark,
looking for someone
you weren't sure
you wanted to find.
 
*

Birds flew in the high parts.
There were lemon embargoes.
Cowboys reeled in the long grass
behind the scenes.
 
*

You painted the word courage
on a barbed wire fence, afraid
that the most hideous things
would happen to you.
 
*

You lost faith in drawing and Buddhism.
You lost faith full stop.
 
*

You wrote, 'Jessica, when she was in a good mood.'
And she killed herself.
 
*

You wrote, 'Manic depressive illness."
And you cried in the car.
 
*

There was a panicked astronaut.
There was a dead cat.
There was a closed door.
 
*

You said, 'In the airport
a couple looked at me
as if I was really there.'
 
*

You got a job eating garbage
outside the underpants factory.
Three months you did it,
for the experience.
 
*

Hot air travelled upwards
creating bird paradise
mid-sky.
 
*

You looked at pictures
of yourself as a child
and said, 'See, once
I was perfect.'
 
*

You thought you had ruined your chance.
You thought you had lost your soul.
 
*

You were in Joburg for a few days
but you never saw a single thing.
You didn't play with your little sister.
 
*

You said, 'Nothing sings sweet no more.'
 
*

You ordered a plate of chips
but by the time it came
you weren't hungry
and you drove home.
 
*

I can't win, you said.
 
*

You imagined the future full of emptiness.
You did not feel any promise in the air.
 
*

Sometimes poetry sprung to mind.
Flowers bloomed beneath the sun.
 
*

You heard the rain on the roof at night.
Rainy concrete ballerinas.
 
*

Morning brought with it
a ruckus of wind and sunshine.
The long-footed ghosts
of all small towns.
 
*

But there was a wolf at the door.
The ocean slicked.
The corridor became empty.
 
*

You said, 'Today God blinks.'
 
*

You said, 'I wish I was Japanese.
Then I could stop fucking up all the time,
being so messy.'
 
*

You're going to make me start crying, honey.
You are searching for an unrelated thing.