Where are we?
The dust has fallen, tense at my feet.
Touch my skin, tell me that I’m dreaming.
Knotted hands and hearts shiver
as a mess of people leave their songs behind.

I don’t want to play children’s games,
with knitting needles and cattle-carts.

Whitened walls are streaked with grey,
the tainted music of pleasurable company.

I don’t want to play like them.
If I run, you’ll catch me. You were here first.

What can you say?
Did you only mean well?
Of course you did.
It was all for the best, of course it was.

It’s all that I need, that you decided this.
What did she say? I never heard her voice,
lost under ransom notes.

You were here first.

Knitting needles and cattle-carts,
pushed over here, in front of me.
The newspapers have words cut out,
their pages stuck together.

Spin me around, slap me harder
so I can see if I can still feel.
Everything’s gone black and white.