Random encounters on the freeway. I’m grotesque. A mess of nerves and anxiety. Collapsing always, a waste of talent drifting among stationary vehicles on a cold, January night. The moon is dead. Dead like the rest. Drowned beneath century old icebergs. Mothers tongue ready for the haunt. Seven circles of hell around erect nipples. Grey buildings between plump thighs. Ready for the calling. Ready for the hushing of inquisitive minds. Chambers of sickness either side of where we sleep. Worlds come and go as we figure out where we went wrong. War doesn’t rage; it just creeps with every passing day. Remember oranges in the sky. Reminisce the times when the air you breathed wasn’t as forced as it is now. My skin cracks like a pavement. Green lawns bring symptomless lovers. Ovaries for sale. Bones on show for all who’ll bother to notice. I am as you are. You are as I will be. London fading. They say you can’t die in your dreams. I hope they’re wrong. Rainbows and tongues around cocks. Buried in misery. Freedom through recovery. My ribcage is a prison. Like a donkey down a well. Japanese beheadings and the principle of tainted flesh. Exit and entry points. Flux capacitors. Death coils of shaven metal. Clutching your journal like a bible. Landscapes of neon streets painted with mascara and blood-stained glass. Those words you shout are but thousand-year-old fairy tales. No one in the sky above to praise you. No one to watch in awe these pitiful acts of abject devotion. Knives instead of candy. Vanish in seconds. Billions of years like they were nothing at all. I strip naked and observe sunken ribs. Navel to nose there’s nothing but dust and daydreams. Nations falter as the stubble on my chin grows. Hundreds burn in an African village while the seed in my balls readies itself for action. Lukewarm sorrow. Pretend friends and abyssal plains. Bellies full of indifference. Alcohol and cigarettes as the flies move from corpse to corpse. Carrion so profound. Paintings sold in galleries cherished only by those with eyes devoid of feeling. Imitations of what the poor call living. Gamble to ease boredom. Pluck feathers and traumatise the weak. Draw an animal rather than save the real thing. Torture your newborn because mirrors are too cruel. Kings of isolation behind every door. Sanitise madness. Make sterile anything that you can’t understand.