If you want to see your life, look at the wheels of a bike,

Circling and spinning with no rhyme or reason,

Scraping up dust and dirt along the journey,

Travelling to a place of which it has no oversight.

If you want to see your life then look down at your watch,

Ticking away at a rhythm that you can't escape,

A reminder of how everything here is finite,

Never skipping a beat regardless of what comes its way.

If you want to see your life then open up your calendar,

There are special days, busy days, days marked in red,

Days that don't mean a thing to you now but may in 20 years' time,

Days that will continue to go on long after you and I.

If you want to see your life then take a look in the mirror,

Some days you'll look great, some days you'll look awful,

One day you're young and the next you're looking at your wrinkles,

But if you're truly lucky, you'll always see you, deep behind the eyes.

A veteran soldier overlooks a field of poppies,

Beautiful, vibrant plants, but all he sees is blood.

His granddaughter cuts her knee as the crimson takes him back,

A young man watching his best friend, Jack, bleed out on the battlefield.

He sees a young couple sharing laughs with a bunch of flowers in her hand,

Remembering the ruby tie he wore to Jack's wedding,

Distracted by how perfect Monica looked in that burgundy dress,

Delivering a speech which he knew might get Jack in trouble, overheating in that blazer.

A father is screaming at his son in the park, scarlet steam coming from his forehead,

The same type he saw coming out of the Sergeant's head when Jack answered back,

The colour he saw on his mother's cheeks when his father thought he could stroll on back into their lives,

That moment in the park, reminding him of a hot anger that made him freeze inside.

One Saturday afternoon, he's watching the football with his grandson,

Looking at him cheering on the same team that him and Jack used to go to watch together,

That cerise kit reminding him of the hundreds of flags and scarves in the streets when they won the league,

Smiling to himself, knowing that passion will live on in his grandson long after him.

I long for a life I never lived, a life before my time,

To be young in this digital age is to be young in a time of an altered reality,

Digital devices which keep us connected to the world at all times,

Don't you dare try to convince me that this is reality.

The beauty of humans meeting and connecting in real life,

Stripped away in place of constant connection,

Feeling as though we don't care enough if we don't show up in the virtual reality,

Our ancestors looking down on us as though we're aliens, our brain structure forever altered.

To be able to meet with friends to play a new album on their record player,

To have to stump up the courage to ask your crush out, rather than like their stories on Instagram,

To go outside and watch the river run by or smell the arrival of Spring,

To know what it's like to delay gratification and grow as a result of occupying boredom.

I long for a life I never lived, a life that I was too late to experience,

For I do not know what it's like to truly have nothing to do.

After all, why face boredom when I can compare my loneliness to the highlights of what everybody else is doing?

It sickens me to say that is reality.

Friday nights aren't the way they used to be,

A buzz that couldn't be felt any other day of the week,

Pacing around my bedroom, elated for the night ahead,

Free of life's stressors for at least a short while.

Friday nights aren't the way they used to be,

An injection of freedom flowing through my veins,

Repeatedly checking the time, hoping that it would just slow down,

Speaking to random people, united in the feeling that another week was finished.

Friday nights aren't the way they used to be,

Surrounded by people to drown out the noise inside my own mind,

Causing problems that I'd regret for the next week,

Escaping to a place that I felt was safe but was really a veil for my insecurities.

Friday nights aren't the way they used to be,

The alcohol replaced with a cup of tea, the pub swapped with the gym,

No Saturday hangover, no late-night binge eating, no bank balance eclipse,

Instead, the sound of some slow jazz, some time to myself and a moment to slow down.

It's hard to view happiness and sadness through the same lens,

One requires searching, the other hits you full force like a crash of thunder,

Happiness can be found in fragmented, fleeting moments that we only look for once they're gone,

Sadness immerses you in a black bubble that seems impossible to navigate from out of.

Happiness is often attached to the past tense, with sadness encapsulating the present,

To acknowledge joy more frequently live, in real time, would feel nothing short of a blessing,

Alike, to be able to package sadness into small, contained pockets of the past,

But without the diversity in our breadth of emotions, maybe everything would feel a little one-dimensional.

Perhaps happiness plants its roots in the past so that we never forget what it feels like,

And maybe sadness takes over the present because it has nowhere else to go,

But as it moves into the past, sadness reminds us of what we want to live without,

And happiness serves as a reminder that we know what we want but just need to know where to find it.

What seems plausible in theory, doesn't always feel that way in practice,

Nothing will ever stop us from chasing the high of nostalgia,

And nothing will convince us that the sadness is worth feeling at the time,

But without one, how could we ever experience the other?

An empty crisp packet tumbles across the street,

Unaware of its destination, but simply carried by a force it can't control,

With no conscience to fight it, just doing what it's doing because it is what it is,

An ignorance which will only end with a trip to a landfill site, with all of those before it.

Yet there's a strange layer of relatability to this,

None of us know where we'll end up, fighting forces our senses can't perceive,

Coasting through life, with hedonism fooling us into thinking we've a grasp on things,

But we are not empty inside, our contents carry the quiet weight of meaning.

Sometimes there's peace in letting the wind carry you along,

But the crisp packet will not lay awake at night thinking about what may have been,

And what may yet be to come,

Though if it could, I'm sure it may have a different fate.

For it is a blessing to take actions that improve our chances,

A blessing that any other species or object would cherish,

But perhaps only then would they understand the quiet weight of knowing how it feels to fail,

And either choose to face that head-on, or let the wind take them.

Everyone is aware of the concept of reincarnation,

We live a life, then die, to return to life in some other capacity,

If human life is such a curse, then why would most want to return in the same form?

We live, we die, and we start again, without having to experience physical death.

In one life, a young boy is playing football in the park with friends,

The only ailments he has are his grazed knees and a bedtime,

In the next, he's tackling exams and the grief of his grandmother,

Styling his hair to impress his crush, pretending to like the taste of stomach-churning spirits.

Luckily, he doesn't get hungover though, that's not until his next life,

In this life he's navigated messy breakups, work stress, and the dichotomy of what it means to be a man,

But in the next, his newborn baby clasps her hand around his little finger, and he finally understands,

His wife, serving as a reminder that true love existed all along.

And one day, he's splitting a chocolate bar four ways, just so nobody misses out,

The scent of freshly cooked lasagna brings a wave of raw emotion to the front of his mind,

As though he's experienced this in a past life,

One where his Mum cleaned up his grazed knees and cooked him his favourite meal.

Monday nights make me think about you,

A new beginning, one that I dream of us sharing together,

Tuesday nights too, when I'm tied up in work, wishing your dreamy eyes were waiting at home for me,

A warm dinner, distracted by you brushing your hair whilst I try to finish my Sudoku.

Thoughts of you hit hard on a Wednesday night,

Tied down in nostalgia, thinking about how fast the time would pass together,

But not as hard as Thursday nights, taking up my headspace when I'm sat at each red light,

My eyes welling up, vision going blurry, wondering how I could ever fumble God's greatest creation.

By time Friday night rolls around, what else could I possibly think about?

Of course, my feelings towards you present themselves like a swarm of bees,

Buzzing their way into Saturday night,

Pollenating my mind with thoughts of you, Honey.

On Sunday nights, that's when the thoughts complete their cycle,

Pondering how I could let go of my true love, how I could be so stupid to soften my grasp,

Another week concluding the way that it started,

Thinking of you, which brings more comfort than not having you at all.

The mind knows you're not ready, but the heart is late to the party,

I was an immature mess, seeking an attention I never received in childhood,

My mind knew I had to live another life, to find myself, to do some growing up,

So why did my heart still yearn for her like it was only yesterday?

As time passes, the heart begins to accept what the mind has since evidenced,

I clearly wasn't ready, a girl like her deserved so much more than I could offer,

Some stability, some trust, some comfortability in my own skin,

My heart felt the gap but acknowledged the progress.

The mind can't always think what the heart can feel,

The feeling of belonging, the desperation in comparing every potential suitor to her,

That feeling that they were never quite right and they were never quite her,

My heart knew it, but my mind could not comprehend it.

Sometimes the heart knows you're ready, but the mind is late to the party,

I'm a different man now, I've grown to accept myself and understand my place in the world,

My heart knows if we ever met again, then that would be for life,

Maybe if my heart and my mind could align, then so could we.

I've started to dream about you,

Transcending into a space with no off switch, the subconscious straying where it wants to go,

As if to say that you'll find a place in my life, whichever realm that may be in,

I'm powerless to it, but there's no way I'd fight it.

I guess I want to dream about you,

The image of the two of us in the same room, like we'd have found our way back there in some form,

For I can spend all day thinking about you, but dreaming turns those thoughts into reality,

And whilst they're not always positive, I'd rather experience you in some form, than not at all.

I've never stopped dreaming about you,

The human embodiment of a dream, too perfect to exist, too vivid to exist without,

But I can take care of you here in this liminal space, never let you go,

I don't regret that I once had you, but I regret that this is the only reality of mine you exist in.

I don't think I'll ever stop dreaming about you,

I don't want to stop, not unless I get the chance to experience you in my main reality again,

That's the only way I'll be able to stop living between the two,

For I cannot control my dreams, and it's clear they will not let you go.

After the first one ended, I drank myself into oblivion,

The second one was buried deep, smoking the memories into a mist,

But this time, crying my way down the M4, listening to The Scientist on repeat,

I didn't want to run anymore; it felt like an honour to feel so sad.

Avoidance,

Always feeling like my openness had made me immune,

But still having to listen to a podcast to get myself to sleep at night,

Six foot one, sixteen stone, and still longing to be held.

Avoidance,

Three weeks post-breakup, telling everyone that I felt indifferent,

Unable to remember the good times, even though they were the majority,

Seeing you walk away in my rear-view mirror, my best friend, now a stranger.

Avoidance,

Arriving back at my bedroom, unable to avoid the corner that held your things,

An empty space on the floor, once occupied by your slippers,

The ones I'd been pretending to not notice since we decided to part ways.

Magnetism,

The first night we met, eyes locked to one another like North and South poles,

The ease of our conversation allowing us to meet somewhere in the middle,

Seventeen months of love, to end feeling as though we were at opposite sides of the globe.

You will be somebody's dream,

A softness that could only be rivalled by a teddy bear,

But an inability to believe you're worthy of love,

To have felt too much, experienced too much, doubted too much.

Only time could tell us that we were not North and South,

But more like North and North,

Surrounded by a field of insecurities, enough to repel anyone who tries to break in,

Creating a gap that looks weightless but contains an unexplainable force.

North and North don't connect,

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them, they're simply just too similar,

They relate, but can't give one another exactly what is required,

They're not broken, they just haven't met their South.

You're the reason I don't walk down by the river anymore,

The most scenic path my hometown has to offer, yet I'll do anything to avoid it,

Trust me, I've tried, but I see too much of myself in that river,

A reflection of everything I had and everything I've lost.

The current of memories which flow through me make it hard to stay afloat,

The fallen tree trunk we sat and shared our first kiss on remains in the same place,

Though slightly eroded,

Years spent waiting for us to return and give it a use once again.

Regret meanders through my veins, cold and harsh, but constant,

As if to say this was the source of where it all started to go wrong for me,

But right before it reaches my heart there's a creek,

Remembering the time we sat there for hours, drenched by the rain, knowing we'd be in trouble when we got home.

My tear ducts flood, sharing the same consistency as the river I observe,

A rapid realisation that you are the stream between my past and present,

For had we not met, I'd have already drowned long ago,

In the same river, powerless to the void of never having been blessed by an existence so precious.

I wouldn't like to walk a single day in your shoes,

A woman with the strength to move a mountain if it were in her children's way,

With inner beliefs of inadequacy and uselessness,

I know the depression is familial, but Mum, your perceptions couldn't be further from reality.

You went through the unspeakable before my existence was even dreamt of,

The truth is, I wouldn't have coped with being alive in a lifetime where you were so hurt,

But regardless, my whole life I've been covered by a protective shield,

One that taught me how to love, how to protect, how to keep going.

All of the things you love so deeply about me are all thanks to you,

And though you've never been able to love yourself, I see it as an unspoken type of self-love,

For you'd never be able to acknowledge the beautiful things about yourself,

Instead, I see it as a reflection of the love you have for your children.

We share the same eye shape, the same thoughtfulness, the same wicked sense of humour,

And I still add that extra pinch of salt to my mashed potato, just to copy yours,

But it never tastes the same, not even half as good,

Because the one ingredient I can't add is a mother's love.

The human embodiment of the phrase, "Generous to a fault",

For you'd share anything if you had it, but don't because you've already given it away,

I'll never forget the story of you splitting a Mars bar four ways, so everybody had some,

And the times you've offered me the last bits of food in the fridge, knowing you didn't have the money to replace it.

But to say this was only material would be a lie,

Stories of the man you were before me and my sister came along,

Paint a picture of a man that gave too much of himself away before his children had the chance to feel it,

And a young man that arrived in the UK with great ambition, turned sour.

To think your son would be in counselling years later,

Trying to make sense of a relationship that the younger him saw as betrayal,

From never showing up to football games, enforcing a religion he felt no alignment to,

Treating trips to the Mosque as punishment, years and years of turbulent feelings.

I love you but I do not want to end up like you,

And the most heartbreaking thing is that I know that's the last thing you'd want too,

I'm glad our relationship has improved with age, and you've shown it's not too late to grow,

But one day I'll split a chocolate bar four ways, and in that moment I'll be proud of the man I've become.

I remember standing outside, looking to the sky, praying everything would be alright,

Chain-smoking, just to do anything to keep myself occupied,

I remember sitting at home holding the photograph of you holding me as a child,

Long gone from my memory but completely aware of how it felt.

I remember the scent of the hospital canteen as though it were yesterday,

Devoid of any ability to eat, speak, move,

I remember the image of fright in your eyes behind every conversation,

The single most influential person in my life, a life stolen from you.

I remember when you didn't have the ailments you do now, running around after everyone,

Putting your needs last, in only a way that a mother could,

I remember thinking our time on the planet together was drawing to a halt,

But still having your presence on Earth is the single greatest blessing I have ever had the joy of receiving.

I remember the taste of your homemade cooking, nothing quite like it,

Warm, hearty and soothing, just like yourself,

I remember when you were able to put your arms around me,

But Mum, for as long as we're here together, I'll be the one to put my arms around you.