bandages
i’m sick of smiling when it makes me weak
i’m sick of trying when the days
amount to this
i’m sick of silence flooding my ears
weighing me down
i’m sick of doctors fixing their ties
as they tell me the bad news
i’m sick of seeing my mum’s face turn numb
when she’s sees me lying there
alone the other kids outside
in the sun
i’m sick of having answers but never knowing the questions
i’m sick of being sick
which is rich because if i wasn’t
i’d be out in the sun
and these poems would never get done
consort
the night
black as panic
you wave at me
through the eastern edge of Spain
into Morocco the coastal medinas of Algeria
gazing out at Mediterranean dusks
we reconvene in Tunisia
where you hand over inscriptions
engraved in bone
i hand them back without a word we board
a boat to Sicily / ride the trains through Italy
you watch me like a woman
cabin lights flickering
we part at the port of home
like blackbirds scattering
into unripe dawns
the memory of your 4×4 the black tunnel
you never look back
(de)generation
the heavens unbolted
and so it seemed odd that you . . .
yet we made it
what is this that makes me
righteous? you take a small part
of you and fix me
patch me up like a nurse
pretend that i’m at least
part of something whole
it was only in primark months later
watching conformity explode
i realised
i was the chapter i hadn’t written
it was me
my culminations on repeat
spray-painted on your eyes every time
you smiled
which reminds me
something fatalistic i guess i understood
you sank soothingly into
level -1
consort
the night
black as panic
you wave at me
through the eastern edge of Spain
into Morocco the coastal medinas of Algeria
gazing out at Mediterranean dusks
we reconvene in Tunisia
where you hand over inscriptions
engraved in bone
i hand them back without a word we board
a boat to Sicily / ride the trains through Italy
you watch me like a woman
cabin lights flickering
we part at the port of home
like blackbirds scattering
into unripe dawns
the memory of your 4×4 the black tunnel
you never look back
ABOUT THE POET
Paul Robert Mullen is a poet, musician, traveller, lecturer, and sociable loner. He has been widely published in various literary magazines and journals worldwide, including Ghost City Press, Barren Magazine, Burning House Press and Heron Clan. He has three collections out on Coyote Creek Books: curse this blue raincoat (2017), testimony (2018), and 35 (2018). He enjoys paperbacks with broken spines, Bigfoot documentaries and all things minimalist.
