Year three.

I'm trying. i really am. I'm not going to say I tried.

I think there's a difference between saying you're trying and have tried.

It's hard to accept, it's something so small, but it's left this huge hole inside of me

like, i lost this secret and it was the best secret i ever had, and it was treasured

never told, and now she's gone and they don't know why I've changed.

Doing. we need to know what to do. whether there's more to do than this

endless drinks, every week we're in a new place. but it's always the same

i always reflect. surprised at how sad i look when i see myself. not that I'm happy

but i think that i could hide it. i don't want to admit to being depressed, i don't know what it is, i don't know if i felt love, i don't know, they say when you feel it you know, i felt something, my heart jumped and all- i- felt the symptoms but lost out on living the cliches.

A love that fits.

On long drives to france we'd listen to Bobby Womack in the car

My father didn't get every parenting trick right but he gave me an ear.

I'd watch him prepare for the summer by standing over the stereo

slowly lowering the recording dial with the precision of a professional safe cracker.

He put care into it, because caring and sharing was hard for him

so he'd let Womack and Womack and the Neville brothers speak for him.

Maybe that's why when tere are girls i like i have to make them.

I mean,

If i had given a mixed tape to every girl i liked,

I'd have given four mixed tapes.

I have given four mixed tapes.

The first was made on the last night of two thousand and seven

and given to my first love on the first day of two thousand and eight.

We met a month before at a party of a mutual friend of ours

While they were talking to her as if water was in their mouths

She decided to help me find my missing comics.

from that moment in every time they saw her it was followed by

"why's she with him?" hard to blame them

they were too self-involved to see the attraction-

A good hearted nineteen year old virgin

going with a flow he's too scared to question

I can't tell you what all the songs were, but i knew the first.

It was Jack White and Loretta Lynn- "Portland Oregon and slow gin fizz

If that ain't love then tell me what is"

I thought that's the type of love that fits, but other than that,

there was nothing overtly love-like or proposing for anything

It was more what i was feeling and for her than feelings for her.

Thin Lizzy, led zeppelin, black sabbath, dexy's midnight runners, Bob dylan

and of course and for always and for all reasons forever, Neil Young.

I had the ten minute cowgirl in the sand song at the beginning

and then ended it with the acoustic version. I felt so fucking cool.

She took it at the end of the night with delight and little surprise.

it gave me what felt like a lifelong lifeline.

Laughing for forevers while we drank for hours. 

Then at another party she took me to she, met a guy.

a guy that she'd date. And like. More. Than. Me.

and he didn't want her to be friends with me.

I guess I learnt a lesson to go with a blessing I didn't question

because she stopped and cut me off and left me lost

while we were supposed to be in a play together

I was getting blanked stage left, right and centre.

and before long this forced rehearsal time would be over 

and after that i'd never see her again. So I made a decision

to make my second mixed tape. recreate the magic.

evidently my first tape wasn't enough, not enough love

I worked so hard to tell her, about her, how i felt

looking back it was a desperate mess of messages

like, heard it through the grape vine by Gaye.

My girl, the temptations. Acapella

and on the last day I saw her with him and I couldn't do it.

I stared at her with all my lover for her in my back pocket

but to of give- it'd make it awkward,

and that's not what i wanted my love to be.

I wanted the type of love that fits.

that portland oregon slow gin fizz.

It that ain't love then tell me what is.

A year later I'm telling myself I'm grown up and wiser

I had since had sex and fucked around and fucked up

enough to know i had forgotten her. Mixed tapes no more.

Though in terms of mixed tapes I had made one more.

To get with a friend and nearly lost her because

my romantic gesture was little more than an attempt to be with her.

and then i got off with her. and her friends (it wasn't okay)

point made i had grown and made mistakes of my own

and was over the girl that nineteen year old had fallen for

until one night I get an email. An apology.

Saying i was a good friend to her and she was sorry.

I remember looking at that facebook message

like it was yesterday. I didn't know what to say.

So i answered through nothing more than links

to how i feel through youtube music videos

She was grateful. I was scared. I had fallen again.

She cam back and became more than a friend

spent a lot of time in my bed

we put lots of kisses on the end of texts

and gave each other a couple kisses i'll never forget

then, one night she left.

She left with my words and hers unsaid and hate i put it on the page

and never said to her face, she never even got to hear that second mixed tape

but it still got played, with women that weren't her,

role playing a happy ending with one-night stands,

a night of romance as if she had finally come back.

I couldn't make love if i didn't hear those tracks.

and when the music stopped to play, come the next day, I changed

I would see them for who they were, nothing more than not her.

For half a year of more i was a complete whore that would build a safe rapport

with girls that i'd convince myself are my loretta

and they'd be convinced that I love them, then i'd never answer their calls

fucking play i got called, i wonder if that's how players are born.

One night I brought one of the prettiest women i had seen back to mine.

She was approaching thirty and actually approached me before, I would've.

On the bus ride back we made out and when we got in i didn't get to hit play

I didn't get to play the mixed tape and i saw someone else in my bed

Someone i wanted to sleep with without that music.

Someone new who knew what they wanted. Me. I was wanted

That night i gave her the tape and she left with it.

She took my words unsaid without me having to say them.

Another year later I'm telling myself I'm grown up and wiser.

When in fact for some reason my freedom has left me numb

In lacking in any wants I find solace in rhythmic thoughts

dulling emotion through mediocre pop and shit hip hop

now i don't pretend anymore, I don't trick women

or trick myself out, now my love is in the craft or a poem.

I don't see women, or see myself being with them

and I'm happier now, because I am now, myself now.

Without a need to feel or a feel to need and i've met someone new

who in a lot of was is just like me, she, walks aimlessly

due to lost loves and losing loved ones we bonded and,

I've lost my old tape recording equipment, so I i've made her a CD

Of all my favourite songs for sad situations.

It's not about her, but for her. Because no ones fought and

No one's ever made her a mixed tape before

sometimes I'm scared of her, because this mixed tape legacy

seems to always end in a curse for me, and i freak out

at little things like hand holding like hand holding like

she'll take the songs and take me away from my ptah

and leave me lost and cut off because we've snogged a lot

and told each other to stop because we mean a lot to each other

and i don't know who could help me the way we help each other

and feelings take over because we get close when near each other

and i'd give more if i could, and i give more than i want

and i've just given so much in my past i can't make love

like it's too much, to the point where I resist what fits

i feel sick whenever I think of portland oregan and slow gin fizz

two and a half years and my initial thoughts of what romance is

has completely fallen to shit. Yet here i am.

Outside another bar with a mixed tape in my hand

to another woman who may take me for all i am

After all this, knowing all the risks i still do it. 

I can't resist.

It that ain't love...

Rush.

The Victoria line has never moved so slow.
Never in my life have i left a full cup of tea cold.
My mind has never moved so fast on one thought.
I'll run to brixton from finsbury park just to make sure you get my hug.
I'll hold you and not stop doing so, but this trains going so slow
we're at Pimlico with three more stops to go.
I'll write to relinquish thought- I wrote that line before.
We both write for the same cause.
and connected broken hearts to build a safe rapport
but I keep fingers crossed that there is a god
and ask him for you to not become the girl i write for
but live with.

A character study.

The man acted like a character in plays he rehearsed for. The child acted like a man.

So childish. He didn't really respect himself until he got help- even then it was hatred

of self that became a motivation to do something. I don't know. Maybe that's not true.

He just can't remember the laughs he's had along the way anymore. Only now.

Only now do things seem to fit. Fitted. There's a spanner that's been thrown into the works.

He's not talking-fuck the third person- I'm not going to talk about it.

but i feel like I have to. but i don't want my insecurities to get in the way of loving you.

At the end of the day everyone is fucked up. Everyone is a bit of a nob. You just have to find

someone that can accept how fucked up you are. Laugh at it and laugh with them and their (and your)

failings. And victories. Someone who's worth going through it with. I was told that a relationship is worth the compromise. That stood with me until i just wrote that and figured out that when you really love someone it isn't a compromise. It's everything you want. She- argh. No. To write about her would be wrong. To write poetry is to write about another moment gone. To romanticise the situation. If i said you were- no. No. I'm not talking about her (you? I know you're reading this. It's terrible ins't it. pretending like this a poem or something) I'm talking about love. But this is called character study. I don't think i wanted it to be about that. I don't know where I'm going with this.

every pause is because I've bitten my tongue in an attempt to stop myself from asking you what's going on. Where we're going with this. Dude that's not even it. I just want to kiss. I think we're a perfect fit. I really do and it's getting worse we're drifting away and I don't even need to write this I just need to say- i just need to take and i can see that you want me to- but swear to god it's only afterwards, when you go in for a second hug, or text for nothing when i wake up. I think about you too. I think about you a lot but I realise i've done actually nothing to move US forward. I've never called you to drink, to chat- the most I've done is say yes to every request you've thrown at me, running to you for the pure reason I know I'm within running distance from you. From you? The excuse is I don't want to hurt you like others have done. When you talk about being hurt when it came to step up or jump the hurdles they'd run from what could have become something special. Like- what if i did that? Like- have i forgot who i am? If there's one thing I've ever been it's loyal. I stuck with sega- when everyone had a playstation I rocked the saturn with pride, even when the dreamcast died stuck by it's side- I've been so loyal it usually results with me getting hurt. Weirdly I decide to sink in a ship that never had me as it's captain. So no that's not it. I think I've figured out why I'm writing this, it's to figure out and analyse every excuse i've made to stop myself from talking to you. the phone is right next to this laptop. Why don't I phone you? why don't we talk it out? Rejection I guess. If it's as simple as that.

Which in a lot of ways it is, if i go about it wrong I'll just ask you in this either don't give a fuck non-chalant or already defeated forlorn manner that will topple the planning altogether but that's a mind state that's bound to end everything in disaster- the perfect moments aren't planned, they're just.... moments when your'e in. The best kisses aren't at alters but train stations and bedrooms okay I've never been married i don't know if that's true but you get what I'm saying. You. Who? This is to me. In a year I'll put it up and i'll either laugh or hate myself by seeing how insecure i was. I thought you slept with a mutual friend last night. I don't mind if you did. of course i do. I love you. I love you.

Year two.

It's a feeling that's hard to hold onto like my thoughts

when i don't think or forget to think about anything else

my thoughts go to her and she becomes my dream

and for hours i basically sleep with us sleeping together

and to wake up without her becomes that extra bit harder-

however, i want to make this clear: this isn't a complaint

I'm happy to just know her, last year i was here but- out, there?

with dreams of fast cars with no path- now I'm aware- to an extent

i don't drink most days i think about how i blaze most days

i dream about web slinging through your hair, falling onto a cushion

i meant her hair. It's not a big deal. I still rhyme. but too scared

to take the mic is such a big deal while my train of thought

charges through like the one in inception, 

dead set on the same unreachable destination.

but, you know, it's not, like a thing or anything, it's cool

we're friends! it's cool, it's cool. it's just a thought. you get me?

Loves soz.

You're a showbox filled
to the brim with mixed tapes
because you're loved from afar.
And loved in the dark.
And you'd freeze your heart
before seeing it break.

You're making me lose focus,
and in this confusion
I'm writing this list poem.
You're motivation to clean my flat.
You're making me wear new clothes
in the hope for more compliments,
You're the subject of internal monologues,
That i imagine are conversations.
You're smiling
and I pray your eyes open
and I pray you don't leave
too early in the morning
and I pray for small things
like hand holding,
like hand holding,
like, to be unapologetically
in love
like, to kiss while waiting for
the bus.
It's more a hope than a prayer
and I suppose it's a joke
how I'm a player.
yet you're a drawer filled to the brim
with final drafts
that I'm scared of letting go
because if you read them you'd know,
that you're all i think of.
and-
and it's the one topic I don't broach
in our four hour long talks
and i kick myself for it
on my late night, lonesome
on my way home walks-
I stop because
I've been in this position before-
and it cut me raw
I was pumped with an anesthetic
that left me numb to the core.

It was then I started playing
playing to forget
playing to grow
playing to play
praying not to hope
the way i do.

If you're not a taker then
i guess i've met my maker
as when there's a girl i fancy
there's no qualm to play her
yet you came backstage
and gave me tips for rehearsal
it's not the bravado they want to see
it's not the performance you should show
it's now hard to treat you like my audience
and do what i wish in the knowledge
that my moves are cool enough to follow.
Because your tips led to my confessions
of secrets that exposed deep parts of my soul.
and if i could have not told you i would of
but when i look at you i talk and just cant' stop.
and then i leave and wonder why it doesn't start.

You're in love with a poem of mine
that i wrote in two thousand and nine
you're wanting that, performance,
every time.
and for you i can't help say it right,
every time.
but i can only say what i was saying
then for so long.
A part of me will always be heartbroken
but when i see you the same lyrics have
been remixed to a different tune.
and I'm almost scared to utter the words
I assumed would never come.
That... I'm ready to move on.
and I'll kiss you tonight till the day comes
and i pray you kiss me with your eyes open
and i hope for the small things
it's wishful thinking-
internal monologues
that i call conversations
and my head goes in circles
and in this poem i hoped
to at least feel consolation
from this ventilation but it's
not working because
us not moving forward isn't
just my problem.

You're stuck in a trap.
In need of self-esteem as bad as
i need my mojo back.
What's bad- thinking your faults

will take us backwards- as if your

temper isn't attractive- as if the mixed tapes

were made by accident. As if your love

for an old lover wasn't what initially

brought us together- Alan shearers

pens on the screen couldn't make it clearer.
You're running for the through ball
but telling me you can't shoot

And all I've talked about is how i need you.

I'm as london as london is me
So I've never felt a need to act tough
my recent defeat left me weak
and now it's like I can't apologise enough
That doesn't mean I'm not
aware of what I'm worth.

yet all i've thought of was how i needed you
expectation blocked my present view
it'd all be easier if you could see you
through my eyes, then there'd be
no problem with us seeing each other.

Just trust you.

What's good?

New friends that become close ones,
good friends that become someones
and Bridget Minamores poems.
Not getting worried when your round comes
Holding onto a loved one till the day comes and
both agreeing to stay in till the next one.
Having a brother in a friend, and knowing
he'll be at your side till you have no days left
and knowing we both feel that and keep it unsaid.
Sunday morning fry ups made by my mum for me.
Thursday morning fry ups made by me for my dad
Any time anyones made me a cup of tea.
Any time I've made myself a cup of tea.
Every cup of tea i have ever had.
Watching crappy tv as a family, getting engrossed into shit
shit music that allows you to turn your mind off.
Great music that pushes you into waking up.
Neil Young, and i wont say anyone else because
out of all my favourite artists he's the one that comes first.
What's good- hooking arms and holding hands.
noses nestled into hair, long talks with foot rubs,
being in a couple of collectives that mean the world to me
one in the business of writing poetry, the other a bunch of poets
who drink to having no money. For life.
Doing what i love, doing it for the love, doing it to get better
to the point where one day i can get paid for doing what i love.
To inspire someone to do what they want, and not just get paid.
watching misogynists performing pieces that think will get them laid.
being able to laugh when girls you like fancy those same men.
Every episode of sopranos, returning to over twenty notifications
Every issue of the amazing spider-man drawn by john romita jr.
being a person who people can see something in.
Being a close friend to a new one, and getting inspiration from
Bridget Minamores poems.