Sadness

I wrote poems for you before -  
not knowing you, imagining you 
to be someone so much more colourful.  

You were flattered, if disturbed, 
and I reeled you in -  
the nobody who I was, catching a fish 
as muscle-bound and violent as you.  
Of course I didn’t know what to do!  

So, when you went swimming off 
into those stormy waters, 
I could only stand by the harbour wall 
and call after you.

If I’d only had the conviction 
or the strength, 
I’d have swum after you 
and hauled you back to dry land.

*	*	*

I’ve been told you’re back in your homeland, 
that you’re broken and medicated -  
Doctor Daddy has got you in that snare again, 
like some sort of idiot Sylvia Plath.  

Forty has come and gone, and you aren’t quite dead,
but you burnt out your brilliance long ago
and settled for manic-depressive mediocrity.

Jobless, homeless - 
you swim against the ever-increasing tide,
bloated and listless,
with no-one swimming by your side.