looking back
over my life
it has been, ’emotional’
it has required buckets
i never thought i had
teardrops
i can easily catch

i am not that type of madness anymore
it stopped when the clocks
started working once more
when i shuffled direct debits
and mortgage payments found my door

i do look at other people
and wonder how they cope
i looked at someone recently
and wonder to myself
had they ever found conclusions

margins of error
or just margins
and ruled lines
which seem to have faded over time
i wrote it all down
even though the pages
have begun to colour in yellows and browns

i always –
settle back on being me
anything else –
feels like foreign currency