The Wedding Cake

Bright amber flags - whirling ribbons of spilt light,
Bloody like abandoned dregs of Special Brew mark the spot.
An X of broken glass and police radio chatter,
Another Friday night out on’t toon.
Kissing and groping in doorways,
So desperate for a fuck in an alley,
She clings to me like stale cigar smoke,
A whisper from the brothel.
I vomit and then she’s gone.
I’m watching a monochrome newsreel,
A fragmented time-capsule,
From a life I can’t remember that was mine.
There are so many things I’ve tried to forget about;
Ghosts and memories demanding my attention,
Before pulling me off my feet into the doorways of dead pubs,
Leading me through scattered glass down piss-coated alleyways.
Minefields of recollection.
I can hear her laughter,
Here was the video-shop where a townie was stabbed to death by a hawker.
Now it’s a brand-new travel agents,
Boarded up from the recession.
Sorry I didn’t spill your pint mate,
No I’m not from around here anymore,
Look over there at that reflection,
That used to be me.
He was a shady cunt,
Demanded money with menaces,
A fiction I made from a mask - just so’s to survive.
Hen-party in the streets,
A wedding cake in white,
Loaded up on barbiturates, ecstasy and pride.
I cross over and I’m desperate to survive,
Don’t fall beneath the pregnant bacchae’s knives.
It was 4.13 when I later heard that the bride-to-be had taken out another girl’s eyes, stiletto heels at midnight over someone else’s man.
True love forever?
Maybe once the booze has worn off.