I met someone who worked
the night shift on reception.
I could see why. A fire exit shone
where her tonsils should’ve been.
She spelt Hello with an F,
a U, a C, a K and an OFF.
Her name tag read Don’t Bother,
her job title None Of Your Business.
The Grim Reaper gave her a wide birth.
The lines under her eyes were contours
from Earth’s first geography book.
They say If you don’t have anything nice to say
then don’t say anything at all,
but I’m worried no one would know she existed.
Before she was born, at least one person said
I can’t wait to meet her.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

If a vaguely familiar royalty-free hold music
started playing every time I bumped into
a friend of a friend of a friend
called Joe or John or Jeff or Joe or John or Jeff
on a train station platform or Post Office queue
or in the pub at a funeral wake
and we plunged into the deep end
of an oxygen-starved awkward silence,
I probably wouldn’t wish my brain and heart
lived in a different post code to me.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I’m excited
to one day
meet the man
who seems to live
behind my eyelids
at night
and set fire
to his pupils.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

You
sitting on a birthing ball
crying into a Cornetto
as a fictional fire fighter dies
is how I want to remember
our old life.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I am five and you are 2,000 years old,
a firework of beige whistling
through the front door.
You light a fuse on the sofa next to me,
a Catherine wheel of chatter
spinning stories I don’t understand.
Your teeth are sparklers shining
to every out of date reference.
My toffee apple eyes melt
beside your ancient warmth
and crackle to dreams
of a darker-haired you
telling tales to half my foundations.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

There’s a cat-flap on the side of my head.
April walks through it most nights
between awake and asleep.
Her misty morning eyes blink behind mine
like soft showers tickling cracked patios.
I can feel her midnight tail against my skull.
She hisses when I think the wrong things
and hides behind nightmare sofas.
She still has a chip out of her right ear.
She still doesn’t tell me how she got it.
In the early hours April chases
the loose threads of my mind and kneads my brain
with the warmth of my favourite baker.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The endless yogurt lids stuck
to the underside of the creaky pedal bin.
The Spider-Man t-shirt
that hasn’t fit my frame in 12 years.
The certificate
for Carl with a K.
The Pukka Pad diary
with that entry from that night.
The woolly hat
I wish I knew how to love.
The crusty shin pads
that snapped when I stopped defending.
The splodge in my brain
that tells me I don’t deserve nice things.
The wonky bedside table
that makes me feel at home.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Today scientists discovered that worry is a blood type.
The sight of a goalkeeper rushing off his line
is a lorry running over my chest.
I can barely stand watching leaves fall.
Hope is making a new friend
in the knowledge you will both die.
Every supermarket name badge is you –
letters trapped in colourful coffins.
Her mouth said Everything will be OK over and over
until the words became wallpaper
in a flat she never visited.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I’m gonna be a wreck.
I’m gonna be squeamish of fictional injuries.
I’m gonna be wet faced as families reunite
and clog my mouth with starch.
Tonight Matthew
I’m gonna be King Edward.
I’m gonna be an easy target, a sniper’s dream.
I’m gonna be the dust down the back of the sofa.
I’m gonna be a fossil with a wandering mind.
Tonight Matthew
I’m gonna be pointless.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

You are every face I’ve ever let down.
I once bought a Snickers
for a train conductor I said a horrible thing to,
I didn’t know what else to do.
He said he preferred Mars Bars before Thank you.
There’s a group of gentle teenagers stuck
in the 90s hating me with just cause.
I used to think of them when I hurt myself.
You are the goosebumps on my neck
when I press send to the wrong person.
I can see you in the pub,
an imaginary 32-year-old receding hairline
charming former rivals to your table,
healing old wounds with your plaster cast smile.

© Carl Burkitt 2020