A room.

Many times

I've walked this room,
and in the cobwebbed-cornered 
gloom
I saw a written name:

it said:
'Many times you've 
smudged these words,
but still they stain.'

I sat in silence
with my lover,
lamp in corner,
pipe in mouth,
in a thick woolen jumper
whilst she knitted.

The wolves were
scrambling at the door
again,
and she said:

'Phillip, won't you feed them
our love?
Even though it's grown dry,
the smell's still so intense.'

There are ghosts of myself
in here.
I can hear my words,
like faint white noise
or the resonating
of a tiny scream.

It's a shame
it's not 
mental illness.