Everything now

It was a grey-tinged day that God forgot.
A West London building stuffed with fish-eyed 

Workers, Styrofoam desks and strip light glares –

Bulbs so bright they laid our souls bare.

 

A boss named Karen, before Karens were invented

Stared down her nose with googly eyes.

We sold Torygraph subs over the phone to

People lonelier than Eleanor Rigby.

 

Didn’t stop us making the top of the charts:

Best sales person goes to Kiran, Alicia.

Winners in this game, this tiny grey pond.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

 

A temp job ain’t no place for dreamers.

You, with your sprinkle-sprinkle fairy dust.

We were wide-eyed and fresh, gonna make it, 

On the cusp, on the cusp of it all.

 

‘The boss is an awful cow!’ Kiran said 

And I knew she was a girl after my own heart.

I’d known her a day, long enough to sit 

In her tin-can car smoking fags, sharing 

Our tales of love gone wild, love gone wrong.

 

Wanna read my poem, she said, yeah, I said.

Wanna read my poem, I said, yeah, she said.

And there was a burst of light in the car 

Parked on the edge of nowhere.

 

Words were what made us whole,

Words were what made us wonder.

Kiran wanted to gulp life in every flavour,

Bubble gum, darkness, and everything between

Everything now, everywhere, all at once.

 

Over the years, she weaved patchwork tales 

Herself as the golden thread,

A bard who found light where others didn’t,

Saw the story etched on a stranger’s face.

 

And she would bare herself in kind.

An alchemy of connection.

What is life if not for living, imbibing,

Breathing it, swallowing it whole.

 

Life twisted, turned,

The weight of loss, the days gone by.

In Wales she went to rest, yet she kept walking, 

One foot, then another, that’s all you have to do.

 

And once upon a time, she met a farmer, 

A man with the valley in his veins as much 

As Kiran had words and whimsy in hers.

 

Wilf’s valley was his kingdom, cut in the shape of his heart,

Kiran’s empire was her own heart and those she met.

Their friendship went viral, a global sensation

In Wilf she saw a king with a wealth of riches:

The meaning of life is doing what you love.

 

She’s an eternal seeker of what makes us human. 

Dance like you mean it, howl like it hurts,

Write your fairy story, build your castle.

Everything now, everywhere, all at once.