When I Told Sam About My Behaviour, He Answered With The Short Line, I Have No Words.

I woke up at 5.10am, with my neck bent up against the wall and the TV yapping. I’ve got a blocked, runny, snotty nose. Buddy snored next to me. Where am I. 5 unanswered messages from Sam on my screen. They are from hours ago, how long did I sleep? I send back a flurry of answers. No response. I try to work out the time in (name of country). 10pm?

I’ve got cigarette butts lined up in the palm tree again.

I sit on the balcony at 6am and smoke a joint and listen to the sounds of a big city waking up. Truck doors banging. Cars approaching and driving passed. The sound of feet scurrying down the foot paths, like vermin in the shadows. Bangs. Whistles. Sirens briefly in the distance.

Buddy is still asleep on the bed. That dog has a steal trap for a bladder.

I contemplate porn at 6.30am. It is still dark.

Buddy retires to his kennel after I feed him at 7am.

I put the bins out. A bit groggy granny dear. It didn’t help that I walked down the laneway smoking a joint, as I rolled bin out over the cobble stones, in my crocs, with explorer socks. (that is the real tragedy here) If you can walk down a lane way at 7am with a joint in your hand, you can do it in Fitzroy.

I made more coffee.

Mitch doesn’t stir. I’m sure he should be getting up at 6am and leaving for work. Mitch is new, I don’t think I have mentioned him yet. A new housemate.  Tuan moved out. Andy's father just died, literally, in the early hours of this morning, so he is with his mother. It's just Mitch and me.

Someone in Portugal keeps reading my poems. Secretly, I hope it is Ed Sheeran at his holiday house/recording studio in Portugal. His problem has always been the words, it has been the words that have always held up his song writing. But, with my words, he records a whole acoustic album called Urban Poet, with my poems, during his summer brake. He gives me a good deal and my percentage of the world wide smash hit sales comes in at millions.

A poem a day. It was Ode to Fitzroy today.

Morning television is on my screen. Thankfully, mute is on. I can see its beige tentacles trying to reach out at me from the screen, but as long as I have my wings of steal flicked on, the mighty mute, I cannot hear it and it cannot reach me.