The Email

The following is an excerpt from my untitled novel at the start of the seventh chapter:

Dr. Percival Young,

It has recently come to the attention of Felema and The Listeners that certain therapy sessions have not been recorded and sent to their archives for inspection. Whether this is negligence on your behalf or a deliberate series of mistakes, The Listeners are demanding that you record every session with your clients from now on. Not only will you face severe consequences if you refuse to follow The Listeners’ instructions, but you will also be contravening your contract with Felema. This will result in your immediate dismissal from Felema as a Primary Therapist.

The Listeners have advised Felema that they are sending a representative to your premises this week to examine your work performance and current lifestyle. This examination will determine whether you are capable to resume work for Felema and adhere to our policies and procedures. If you wish to discuss this matter further, do not hesitate to call me at my office or on my mobile phone.

Kind regards,

Patrick Washington

Director of Felema

Pirate

Pirate

There was a lull in the night

from all the green we’d set alight.

Vespertine and layered grief:

the face you wore, the man, the thief.

Pirate, you’re a stealer of kisses!

It was definitely a privilege.

The other side of unrequited

doesn’t really feel like a privilege.

I thought I had a friend in you,

together dark, together blue.

Your hunger, lust and weary eyes

burned to dust and snuffed the fire.

“Why couldn’t we be?”

Why did it have to be?

You’re off threading another cocoon,

but I know love is coming soon.

Loverfire

Loverfire

The sky of late, a great ivory slate,

is streaked with metals, ash and ghosts.

T’was a first date, t’was all in my gait,

the virus feasting upon its host.

I saw your blindheart burn absolute,

but at least I knew it then.

Your jokes fell flat with my loverheart,

still, my loverheart knows no men.

So, I’ll retreat into loversong

and I’ll revert to my loverways

of wasting all my loversongs

on wasting all my loverdays.

The sky, one day, will burn loverfire,

and I will wear every desire.

I dress the wounds of lovelessness,

burn on, loverfire, of endlessness.

My loverspeak is ever-fluid,

my lovermind so reassured.

The loverspeak spits love and swells,

my lovermind’s on loverspells.

Lovers' Dialogue 2

Lovers' Dialogue 2

“That doesn’t impress me,” you say,

on the floor, stretching toward your toes.

“You just have to be. No questions.”

I scratch my head and reflect,

recalling the doubts and the conventions.

“But, what if I really let it go?”

We took to the kitchen for our feast,

engorging ourselves, a thoughtless act.

You picked the seeds from the flesh,

a compulsion of infallible precision.

“Forget them,” you advise, sated.

I fill the sink with hot water

asking, “What will I do?”

You clap your hands together;

the boom of a thunder strike,

saying, “There’s no ‘I’ in free.”

I wash and wipe and polish,

a slave to domesticity.

So, I just have to be.

I pull a chair up to you

and observe the kinks in your face.

“Age is a number, and life a dash.”

So, am I just young and excited,

craving a psychedelic stupor?

“I hate it when you do that,” you say,

pinning me like a thumbtack to a wall.

“Don’t underestimate yourself!”

I see the blood boiling in you like a furnace. 

I see your fire eyes and ash.

“There’s much I can’t say,” I whisper.

You open my diary, bloody and worn.

There are secrets and there are perplexities,

there are dreams and there are realities.

“My lips cease the fire,

but loaded bullets are my soul.

I once climbed the spire;

now the Pit’s become my whole.”