it
was winter 1998 we met acting a pantomime
10
and 11 you were already taller than me
i
think you were captain hook
i
played the ship’s cat of course
you
brought in philadelphia cheese and bread sticks
in
little packs every day you were very excited by them
a
kind of a school holiday course
you
had a good packed lunch i had money
for
the vending machine – we worked out a deal
you
were a real show off telling me big books
you
read but you would be impressed by things i said
you
went to school with peter pan
who
i wanted to marry or at least touch
i
met her again in 2003
we
made out at a walkabout in reading
don’t
read this to your friends
i
know you read some of my poems people laughed
i
don’t write for laughs sam
i
wrote you i don’t want over the
shoulder readers
i
suppose they probably thought you wrote it
like
a joke but sam it was a joke at my expense
i
write things down to get them straight in my own head
not
straight in anybody else’s
i
wrote you
in
good faith
when
you visited in december 2004
you
had been at university for a few months
you
had found a girlfriend and
and
your moderate academic success
you
were to me
you
were a total cunt to me
i
don’t know why i send you letters
and
poems why i feel like it is important you
of
all people know how i am doing and so you can see
why
it hurt me to know that you were passing off all this
stuff
that i send you out of some kind of
irresistible emotional impulse
some
kind of absurd compulsion based on a bond based on nothing except
maybe
time passing it off as your own
so
you can see why it hurt me
don’t
do it again