Life Hacks

I freeze bananas at your suggestion, wrapped in foil.

You refer to your body as a carcass and go to the gym

every morning for miles on the rowing machine

you cycle there.

I look out of my door at the corner shop twenty houses up

and wonder if I can be bothered to walk

in my slippers for a £1 bar of chocolate.

There’s a woman who blanks me now

I feel uncomfortable if she’s in a room

and assume she does too. I’m not sure

what was the final straw, want to say

“You don’t speak to me now, is that right?”

even though I know about her infidelities

her ego, her little black heart.

I look at websites, can

convert a shampoo bottle into a little pouch

for hanging your phone beneath a plug so it can charge

without unsightly trip hazard wires

and I know the correct way to break a Toblerone.

I’ve amazed people at parties with that.

And I could untarnish a silver cornet

using foil and baking soda.

You might think I don’t have a silver cornet

but there are many, many things in my loft.

I dream of sorting endless boxes and finding

a thick cream carpet I never knew was there.

Keep your enemies closer.

Shit on me once, shame on you. Shit on me twice

that’s my shame, right there, tasting like

being too old for anything, being too past it

and not part of this new, devise everything from scratch

then scratch it life.

I am enraged by things. The word ‘gifted’ for one

when it doesn’t mean talented. People who say ‘newkiller’

for the bombs that make mushroom clouds.

And not winning. That makes me mad.

I’m mad right now and I can’t hack it.