…not finished yet

when conversation
will never go beyond
how nice your dress is
and blending in feels ‘tractive,
normal,
friendlier
than the continuously stalling
non start of anything

when out of love,
hope,
normality,
curiosity
you make the openest of gestures
and they’re not thrown back in your face with answers
but ignored completely
as if they were just flat
spaces like all the others
like nothing happened

when talk that’s started
to provoke amusement
ends up in boring declarations of
sincerity
and you don’t know where to look
how awkward, how misinterpreted

when despite knowing it
you stubbornly, aggressively, obsessively
keep going the wrong way
pushing on and on
applying, begging
perversely pleasuring from others’
shiny, streamline happiness
whilst personally refusing to do the same

and when you get that
real sense of achievement
from finally waving a prescription
so you can say “i’ve made it
now. i’m one of them!”