I take rejection like a winner, spit the blood

from my mouth when you’ve finished

pounding childhood

trauma into my lungs, smile through the bruises,

keep your secrets in my throat, along with your name.

I won’t speak you into existence.

My body tapped out but my Spirit’s in the ring, I won’t go down.

Fists don’t need words to speak, shades of you staining my cheekbone, a child’s signature.

Some TV and a hot dog washed down with Cherry Coke followed by images of a car crash on the M1 that pave the way for daydreams involving alluring women with supple hips slithering upon hot white sand and then it’s stray dogs burning on the streets of Moscow and for hours I’m just sat there doing not much of anything wondering why it is I’m so odd. Might do the dusting. Put the vacuum around and get rid of the dust. Dust everywhere. It never seems to shift. My own dead skin, smothering me like an unwanted lover. I light up a smoke then watch The Elephant Man again. Makes me feel sad so I have a few beers and close my eyes thinking about Victorian England and what it must have smelled like. Imagine the filth. Imagine the pubs and the dirty, diseased skin and even dirtier naughty…