PICTURES IN MY HEAD

I don't want that picture of you in my head,
The one of you with someone else,
I turn my thoughts to think of other things,
And prevent the horror movie from playing out.

Now, like correct yet meaningless photographs that fade
Into the unknown of visual overload
This conversation with a friend may blur
And I will forget where the next few minutes will go
But I won't forget the ache of that love,
Was something missing,
Maybe that was all I was meant to have,
Meant to taste, meant to know, meant to feel?

I am the living dead, a zombie with no emotion
Looking at snapshots of myself through an overhead camera
Seeing the inevitability of the bald spot and the familiarity of myself
Like a friend I once knew and won't cross the street to say hello to

I lift the glass of dark yellow and drown in the cream
Reading the spindly serifs on the glass:
I speak no German but I feel a oneness
With the stout master brewer who did his job well, somewhere, miles away...
He's Nepali, and two metres away
A smiling boy of twenty three
Who has blended weiss and dunkel
Accidentally to great effect

I am lifted by the conversation of new photographs
Of images we arrange in our heads and projects we can see
The most satisfying photograph will always be in the head
Lit as I imagine, with texture and expression,
The frame pixel perfect

I walk too straight and look down at the rhythm of my shoes
Brown against the asphalt,
I sit and listen,
Dashboard grey and edible cream against the orange street night
It's only teenage wasteland, and I'm still there,
I drive home sedately in the middle lane,
Watching the empty wing mirrors,
Black with white lines that hypnotize,
To sleep, imageless, thankfully, in my bed