The bedroom seemed sterile

despite the crumbs and dust,

which no doubt lurked beneath

the wardrobe’s husk, beyond a Hoover’s

penetrating limits.

Emptied of treasure,

and junk like bubble bath gift sets

when I would have preferred

a shower [of money], and the guilt

that accompanies drawers stuffed

with this knowledge.

Like a hasty murderer, I filled bin liners

with unwanted cosmetics, carrying these

out to the wheelie bin, lowering the lid

over a series of birthdays on which relatives

proved they didn’t care to know me.

The bunk-bed promised to enfold

within itself, the hours built up over years

of creaking frustration half-disguised as

self-exploration; likewise, the eruption of stew

the night I’d spewed up the bowlful consumed

after ten days of food deprivation.

One or two tell-tale blood stains

if you knew where to look; the floor, the duvet;

the jeans I’d worn down A & E. An array of blades

locked in a safe, were packed and waiting for me.

Tidy. Empty. Posters stripped and rolled into

blank canvasses, only showing their reverse side,

like my mother showed her perverse side

when forbidding the sticking of civil rights

campaigning on the window pane, in a “tacky display”;

I bit back my rage that day, as always.

Leaving a couple of items behind, wanting

the place to still be mine for a short time,

I was disappointed when they brought round the car

to drop them off, along with boxes of stuff

from the attic; things they’d once taken without asking

[they’d forgotten my fan, as my sister’s was broken

and we felt its nonattendance that summer,

propelling us towards Argos catalogues];

ornaments and stuffed dogs I’d wanted to give to

an Oxfam shop, but my mother had refused –

now they claimed our space, as musty issues.

I returned a week later, a bemused visitor

at the sight of my old refuge freshly painted

and used for storage of my sister’s excess.

The bunk bed still balanced on three legs, but

a desk took up the other side;

one I recognized as previously mine – it had

disappeared, without explanation, when they decided

on decoration as a solution

to “the gloom” of an eighteen-year old’s room

in her absence; I had returned to chaos, mess

and lack of a desk [serious business for a young writer].

Sister explained that hers had got broken, so mine was given

as a  replacement. It had been too long to feel anything

but intrigue and amusement.

A house cleansed of me [and my passive charity]

was an interesting place to be.

The first of January drifted in,
mundane as the milkman’s daily clinking,
at some point between Auld Lang Syne
and the joyful hugging.
Now we’re just bleary-eyed mortals again,
mechanically emptying the house of mince pies
and complaining about television.
Anticipation fading, secret vows
already stale and defeated.
After all, it’s only a number.
Nothing’s changed

II

Regiments edging forward slowly, clutching
this month’s potential in plastic key form.
City conveyor belts, plotting the immediate future,
already picturing handing it back over –
to a different face, it’s true – and hey, in return:
anchored down by possession, collection,
status achieved chemically via paid admission.
Shelves to be filled, brain cells to be killed.
High Street windows; new image reflected
in dead-eyed mannequin sentries.
Pay day has arrived again.

III

One does not equate the other
yet how quickly they assume,
these parents, employers, lecturers
caring less for expansion than for imposed letters;
the leader of the alphabet swelling with new-found importance
while children wallow in ignorance.
Books forever nearing the cartoon-cliff of extinction,
booted off the edge amidst primitive chanting
as, plugged into pleasure, we’re whisked backwards.
Grunting, squandering, in these hedonistic days:
a useless tribe of ‘clever’ cunts.

IV

Some argue it’s only an illusion
while a deaf audience laughs in their face.
Ha. Watch how quickly goldfish learn
aversion to pushing the outer limits, instead turn
around to kid themselves for another day
that they could bullet through if they wanted, but choose to stay.

Topical debate quickly becomes anomaly

for you cannot waste what you never possessed,

while hypothetical restraints, like gratitude, transparently delay

the strength to wield and achieve; instead the insistence that we’re blessed:

time spent in self-deceit helps the greener grass fade.