Diary of a twenty-first century son

1.

They’ve found a diamond
in the allotment
next to our house

where Wendy’s cousin screamed
into the Friday night
and later when stitches
criss-crossed her scissored skin
you said it was a shame
that she lost her pretty face.

We had a barbecue there once
a heart-shaped steak smoked in the heat
of percolated petrol and plastic sweat
the ooze of blood made me marvel at
the similarity: cow-blood, pig-blood,
your blood, mine.

2.

I’ve started meditating
in the living room, breathing
through an asthmatic wheeze
nursing carpet burns whilst

worrying about
how to talk,
how to formulate the
beginnings and endings

and I always choke when
my meticulous mould
of arithmetic prose
vanishes into the
confident glow of our
television set, fuck
this shit.

3.

You’re nicest to me on Facebook
but I’ve seen the secrets
in your embrace, when bones bust out of your body
but then –
you walk through the door
and your face isn’t the same
as I remembered

I was four years old when I tried to leave this place
- an afternoon at the station, tugging sleeves
begging to hear about faraway places
I still haven’t seen.

4.

There’s hope for me in these pills
the ones mum wraps in cabbage leaves
because we all know how you feel
about medicine

yes, you in your chair
the umbra of our cloaked kitchen
you –

it’s all over
the allotment burns
in the background
and my metallic tongue
speckled with words unwanted
dissolves like a tablet

he’s not hearing any of this son
he’s not even here.