i find myself, now and then.
Often in the early morning
walking over Waterloo Bridge,
rubbing sleep from my eyes with smoky fingers,
wheezing as the cyclists whirr by.
i find myself, for a moment,
and i buy coffee.

at night i do not sleep.
the bedclothes stick to me.
i try to concentrate my thoughts on empty spaces,
on harmless landscapes,
but life creeps in.
i crash from memory to memory,
from pain to pain,
and leave my bed at morning light
tired and in surrender.

from time to time
there are women lying next to me.
i run my hands over their bodies
but cannot find myself.
i am no longer asking for pleasure,
but something altogether better.
I don't know what.

before large crowds
i sit within myself and listen.
my own spectator,
i no longer feel a fraud so much as absent.
i am not with you, people.
I am not here.

when i am most honest
when i am fucking
or drinking
or laughing
or dying
or killing
quietly, within, i find myself.
I confess, with shame,
that i want love.
I no longer feel able.
I no longer believe.
but i may just need something unbelievable to happen.

these recent days
i find myself longing for rehab
to be in that field in Wales
with early alarms and set meals and tiring walks
and long religious talks -
people urging us to invest in higher power
urging us to look beyond our own selfish desires -
I'll buy anything, now, to take my mind off.
and i remember the girls there, that i used to love
and i remember too often,
and i remember too much.