Three More Days

Mike Watts is a poet and spoken word performer from Hull, Yorkshire. This poem is taken from his book Day and Night in the Damaged Goods Factory. Phil mined this gem of a lament, and he's guest reading today.

Click the title of the poem to listen.

Three More Days

Alone for three weeks

In a bed that has

Crippled me,

Whose sheets have tormented

To the edge of 

Insanity

And tonight,

As bleak northern bursts

Pelt rain at my window,

Wanting nothing more

Than to feel

The warm plump

Of breasts

Soft at my back.

I am here

And she is 250 miles south

Of hands

That would peel

Her like fruit

If she were beside me now.

Heavy as I am,

Sleep touches briefly

And the need 

To piss

Is about to break it

Completely.

There is too much space.

I want

An entanglement of legs,

An arm locked

Around my chest,

I want to close my eyes

Until the point

Of an elbow

Digs a rib

And wakes me.

by Mike Watts