in borrowed rooms
i live in borrowed clothes
or sometimes in the finer things
you bring from
the Salvation Army
when you visit my bed
and offer me the fog of love
and your smoky body
borrowed from
your sleeping husband
and i have to confess
that i am staggered
in the morning when i realise
you're gone
even while i count the kisses
you've left
there on the breakfast table
between the mismatched china
and the library book
that you say you borrowed
just for me
a true story you said
so much like our own flight to forever
but clearly no more than a dream
that you carelessly borrowed
from some nostalgic romance
the cruellest fantasy of love that
you hoped i would believe
was something more than
an endless spiral of illusion
leaving me only the crumbs of
dead hope on a chipped plate
but i have no appetite for
the borrowed phrases and
the leftovers of a pretend life
here one moment
and gone the next
a ritual of misdirection
and so cruelly poisonous
for a man like me
a man starving for love
and living the lie of
a borrowed heart
beating moment by moment
on borrowed time
