See, serotonin gets stamped down,
pushed into a corner and told
‘Maybe not right now’. In a sulk,
the chemicals take your dreams with them,
say that you can’t play without their say so.
Dreams, for their part, miss you,
head at you in a rush and bowl you over
with a whole week’s worth of love at once.
Take the tablet once a day,
wash it down with water
you can taste the past in.
Learn to live with last night’s nightmares,
better them than memories
dark enough to lose sight of the future.
Wet concrete when the rain has come,
reminds me that our tower blocks
will someday succumb to the same force
that kisses earth and coaxes
gentle blades of grass to grow,
part the soil and reach towards the now grey sky.
The clouds are teased apart
by the harp strings of the sun,
playing songs to call the droplets back,
that put cracks between the brickwork as they pass
and melodies to make the new grass sway.
I am the failed and fulfilled potential found
in every drop of rain.
This is family,
bound tighter than a dictionary,
with every word kept safe inside
as the pages start to scuff and fray.
This is history,
stretching out before me wide
on either side. Touching bard and skald
and griot to the slammers and the beaters.
As their fingers grip,
tearing across your
careful folds, slow realisation
spreads across their face.
The beauty of a forest fire.
You cannot stop it,
so you let the fire burn,
feel your own heart glow.
Too many industrial estates
have been relevant to my life.
All the same, all squat sadness
made from bricks
and the cheapest corrugated metal.
Here I find the people
who put the pieces
of my world together.
The ready meals
and the windowpanes,
reams and reams of bunting
made from colours you can’t find here.
Irregular laughter finds its way
into the smoke that seeps into the sky,
curling out from narrow chimneys.
Lost amongst the avenues
of orange brick and smells
that take a lifetime to forget.
Cameron Holleran 