you’re making this a
hard time
intruding on my
new life
breaking hearts and
calculators
chewing like an
alligator
deep into my
second thoughts
begging for the
heat to stop
a mission that’s still
incomplete
your mem’ry rendered
obsolete
my summer in the
melting slow
too late for a
midnight show
words like spilled wine
overflowing
living with the
never knowing
the only one left still
to blame
is she who swore she’d have
no shame
when summer came and made
leaves fall
she’d got some in her
after all
and drunken burning
in the night
she leaves the city
to the light
crashing tumbling
all about
her mind a mess her
heart without
the courage left to
be the one
to forget first and,
finally done,
live long and win at
every game
and every lion’s
brave heart tame
a promise kept, an
end complete
still on the hill
stand empty seats
to linger, rot, and
then return
to blackened soil
cities burned
a throne, a kingdom
late and loud
coloured with the
haunting sound
of singing, being
bright and strong
and hoping it could
last this long
hope failed and all our
flaws now bare
we face ourselves with
little care
to what we said we’d
always be
a testament to
dying free
and still you cut like
gentle knives
an autopsy of
former lives
dissecting me right
where it bleeds
scatter droplets
of my greed
don’t stain your hands
for me my friend
lost cause I wander
round the bend
I’ll find a way, I have
no doubt
in honesty I’d thought
without
your guiding light my end
I’d found
but we march on with-
out a sound

now what we said we’d
always be-
a testament
to dying free