Every Defeat a Divorce

I am not a crutch
Although my knees are rife with woodworm
And the mealworms I misheard for lunch
Are rotting in my guts
With a childhood of fingernails
That ripped my throat to shreds
A walk that chimes like church bells
From all these loose joints in my legs

These three lions that were sitting on my chest
Are clawing hard into my skin
As I am gasping for my breath
And as they each play noughts and crosses
On the scratches they have left
I have to screw up both my eyes
As it goes into sudden death.
They whisper
"Really all these noughts are circles holed, bereft
And all these crosses crucifixes,
Spreading guilt and sense of dread."
And as we stumbled homeward up the hill
To where you used to live
The cold makes ice upon our cheeks
From all the tears that we have shed

These things rattle round my head
If he hasn't blown the whistle
Then it isn't quite the end.

Every defeat a divorce
Although I look surprised
It's par for the course I guess
Every defeat a divorce
Although I look surprised
It's par for the course I guess

And I don't really know now
What I thought I knew then
You can lead a horse to water
But it won't drown itself

This one family photograph
Always floats to the top
Like a beaming, bloated corpse
Though having been made up
My memories are sepia
But the photograph is not
An historian is fucking with them
As deadly as garrotte

Where they're standing in the kitchen
With his arms around her waist
With no idea of what's to come
And a smile across your face
And all the fittings are the same
But every other thing has changed
Must forget everything you know
As though your mouth and tongue estranged
Small comforts found in ABBA Gold
And electronic chess
When West Clewes was my Waterloo
My most dramatic test
Now I've been walking down the shortcuts
And the alleys in the dark
Because I'm not scared of the shadows
They're no blacker than my heart

These things rattle round my head
If he hasn't blown the whistle
Then it isn't quite the end.

Every defeat a divorce
Although I look surprised
It's par for the course I guess
Every defeat a divorce
Although I look surprised
It's par for the course I guess

But how could I ever refuse
I feel like I lose when I lose

And I don't really know now
What I thought I knew then
You can lead a horse to water
But it won't drown itself