Are You Alone?

Is this the first time you've skipped town With a tinderbox of postcards, to a place of no renown? And did you forget to pay your dues To the man who ties your shoelace, and adds decimals to truth? Are you still here? Are you still singing the same songs About his body and your radiance The square root you got wrong? Does it feel good To know the gods had you in mind When they devised perfection in the past They made you leave behind? And are you alone now? Can you feel anymore? Is it easier to fade away When you have been bleached from the floor? And didn't they ask you Not to beg on your way down Or hide in the scriptures Beneath the tarot deck your anti-pope left out? Is this the longest you've abstained From the indulgence of compulsions, now steering your stagnant state? Was it the words that tripped you up The ones that elevate transgressions far beyond your sinking touch? Is it still dark? Are you still trying to make your mark Drinking petrol at the junction Where nobody ever parks? Do they take note Of your attempts to rock the boat Your cousin traded you for coral And a dozen slaughtered goats? And are you alone now? Can you feel anymore? Is it easier to bury forbidden fruit Than let it drown your thoughts? And wasn't it better Just to let the struggle go And watch as the dream Consumes the paradise you bet against your soul? Wasn't the promise beautiful, When its flesh was still obscured behind a concrete waterfall? And did it feel lonesome at the top Where you realised the summit is a thirst that never stops? Where were your friends When your movie didn't end When you ran out of ideas Bouncing blank cheques around instead? Where was your seal When your sell-by date expired? Did it have to show its secrets To lure you into the fire? And are you alone now? Can you feel anymore? Is it easier to see the angels When you've already lost the war? And didn't your prophet Look so naked in the light Of the crucible He advertised online but never did arrive? Of the brownie points they let you steal before the bored them from your mind Of the sex and drugs you used to fuel your fantasies of grand design Of the old wishing well you bricked up with yourself curled up inside Of the flavoured poison you sieved from the breast that softly stole your flight Of the guiding hand that crushed you in its grip and rinsed you in the tide Of the great boiler room that you made sick with rancid sacrifice Of the cultural tumour that your harboured until you were the parasite Of the cold winds that blew when forgotten youth remembered its demise Of the acceptance that slipped from your deathbed like weevils through the rice Of the silence that you knew would breathe between the memories you piled?