In case you think we've lost the plot, this piece does have an autumnal timeliness…
Another Endless January
Another endless January, wasted
with drinking binges
and the rattled hinges
of doors that never open
on eyes that never close,
but sink, deep beneath
patchwork sheets
of fading blue and faded green,
into the horror of a dream:
hotel rooms and bingo halls,
heart shaped clouds and snakes,
bottled up with February
(like everything of you in me)
eating themselves into a hole
of self-obsession,
self-annihilation.
January is nothing
but planned depression
with moments missing, lost
in lightless days
of jealousy and greed
and then starvation–
of the body, of the mind–
escapism of any kind;
and forced regrets, too hard to forget,
too easy to remember,
like steamed up windows
on the Fourteenth of November.
My year begins in September
when the streetlights glow
a pinkish red,
when the leaves are falling
but they haven’t fallen yet.
* PrettyLittleGypsyGirl (not his real name) describes himself as “a serial ruin artist… a bloody reckless lay-about… a poet and a painter and a pianist of sorts”. He's a new contributor to IS&T and adds that “it's the first time I have ever submitted anything – anywhere!”
