In Distaste. Poem by Ben Wallace

And I wondered why you didn't curl your lips up
in distate,
when I lit up as you sat down beside me.
You with the trendy blonde hair, eye makeup
and peach coloured skin.

Oh a quick betrayal of everything I had you
pinned as,
like a moth to a display board,
you were just another office girl.
So surprised when the ring of words,
you slipped so sensuously between your lips,
read the same as my addiction's fuel.

Of course you smoke the golds,
the one's for girls.
I smoke the reds,
for those of us who just wish death,
slightly quicker than the rest.

You sat beside me, as we confided silently,
two addicts and an easy way out
on a warm Saturday.

You looked anxious,
like you wanted to talk.
I felt like writing you this,
there and then,
with a note at the bottom saying;
'Just talk, it'll be easier that way.
Silence doesn't become you.'
And other such poetic nonsense,
which you'd have promptly ignored,
so I just sat with my eyes behind pages,
written by a man who's better than me.

I'd read to you, from my new book of verse,
if I thought you'd have the time, or the taste for
another being's sadness, upon his fabled mountain.

Instead I kept my new eyes down,
not letting them stray too often to yours,
dark rimmed as they are,
I thought you'd catch me, smile at me,
then I'd have to smile back,
and I feel as though my face would crack,
my new teeth fall out and I'd lie faith down,
in the dirt and cigarette ends,
beneath your fashionable boots.