I’m watching
an extra in the background
of a TV show
I don’t even know the name of.
He looks lost.
He’s holding a cup of tea
like it’s real,
like it’s the only thing
he’s held in months.
The actor with lines
is wearing a leather jacket
that doesn’t suit him at all.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I have 1,000 ghosts
living in my kneecaps.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

she is breathing.
She invented scrambled eggs.
She is an Excel spreadsheet.
She has body language that hears.
She is built from the stuff
they built the Stockport Viaduct from.
She struggles and flourishes.
She tap dances across stars.
She is resilience wrapped in skin
wrapped in vulnerability
wrapped in Cadbury Marvellous Creations.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

He decided to crack on,
look forward,
not worry about things
he could no longer control,
to keep playing darts
and taking the piss
out of John’s crap flights
and shutting the door
until we’d see him in the morning.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

and I think
you realised you are part of something
bigger than yourself
but stopping you
climbing up the television
sends you back to the training ground
where the walls are made of tears.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I imagine people watching me
sitting on the sofa
minding my own business
making up lyrics
to the Gogglebox theme tune.
My snack bowl is empty
so they’ve got nothing
to focus on until I’m done.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

You are crawling
on all fours laughing
with one of my socks
in your mouth.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

You are pushing a plastic snail
bigger than your torso across the floor
with the end of a set of measuring spoons
and I’m thinking about the men
who spend their days chopping
congealed fat off the walls of our sewers
and my fingernails are spotless
and I cannot re-wire a plug.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

An angry bald man?
A molten coaster?
A wild eye?
A tiny freckle on a giant blue creature?
An evil bum hole?
The world’s most dangerous football?
The Devil’s egg yolk?
The reason you’re here in the morning?

© Carl Burkitt 2021

What did you do to deserve this, Keith?
Is your tongue a concrete mile?
Are your eyelids twitching curtains?
Is the stubble across your chin
symmetrically placed shrubs?
Are your knees speed bumps
and your forearm lampposts?
Maybe you opened up your home
to as many people as you could,
or maybe you were someone
who got walked all over.

© Carl Burkitt 2021