disConnection

Photo by Jackson David on Unsplash

I am looking for tenderness

in all the wrong places. Scrummaging

among unknown faces

until a meeting of presences, bobbling

in a sea of meaningless transactions.

I imagine your presence

hugging the outline of my body and

the feeling of safety trembles

in the silhouette of our embrace.

It is five hours between sleep and wake, eight hours between work and Sunday best. Two hours for a quick hash, three hours for a dinner in cash, then, four hours later the children finally rest.

Photo by Sven Mieke on Unsplash

Somewhere between sleeping

and waking,

there are silent spaces of meaningful

connections — where,

the ethereal membrane between

here and there, then and now,

you and me, shimmer

ever so briefly with

every gilded heart of quiescent affection.

I am looking for validation

in all the wrong places.

Shifting landscapes and power grids,

feeling hungry open the fridge.

After missing out on all the pretentious

standing ovations,

I imagine this fleeting adoration

to be short, sweet, and inconspicuously

out of reach.

It is five hours between sleep and wake, eight hours between work and Sunday best. Three hours for cream on a rash... Two hours to make sausages with mash. Not long, six hours passed before the children can rest.

Photo by Lux Graves on Unsplash

I am looking for love

in all the wrong places.

Amid the chaos and ruin,

forgotten, and destruction, there is

a man who dresses an outline of you.

His breathing chases spirals

around an outstretched heart, and

few will ever know

its fragmented ridges and infinite plateau.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

It is five hours between sleep and wake, eight hours between work and Monday’s test. Three hours try not to stress, two hours to make a dash, another six hours until the children rest.

I see you

in all the wrong places —

Tossing the children, full of laughter brimming with tears,

drinking in the sunset,

gracefully stained by the years.

I look for you

across unheard-of databases.

In a world dramatically sterile

and cold, devoid

of any meaningful attachments, these intimate

rendezvous

measure my only connection

To a world

where it takes,

at least eight hours to sleep to the dawn; another eight hours of work, there is no rest. One hour for three games of chess, two hours to cement one hot flash, five hours for the children to rest and,

two hundred and forty hours to reduce a city to ash.

Photo by sophia valkova on Unsplash