When you find yourself alone, as though in a dream, in a song, in a room full of books and broken glass, where death, love and morning have never been. When you’re down, out and feeling blue, and you haven’t slept for nights covered in shadows. When you’re drunk, twisted and confused, wondering if you’re too old, too young, too clever, too dumb, flipping luck to make a living. When your heart fills with flies, worms work the mind, and lizards crawl the wall. When you give your self away to an empty bottle, promise and a song. When the bells of past no longer toll, the clouds of change don’t burst, your hands are dusty, your heart is stubborn, and all you can ask is when will I get a good raise, when will it rain, or shall I come back again? When you’re tired, hungry, looking for a fix in beat, raven eyes, and you’re just a breath away from coughing blood, or reaching out to the sea. While your best friend lies in hospital fighting needles, nausea and cancer, your brother is playing guitar in the room below, and the lights begin to dim, the stars come out, and you’re tired of waiting in lines, headaches, and merry-go-rounds. When your words are stolen, your smile is put on, and you sell memories in plastic, sugar and lies to be polite. When all the television hate fills your soul, and your silent eyes have filled rivers of rage, but you can’t be perfect, and you can’t be vain, and you can’t let the fire go, but raise your fist in the air against the 9 o’ clock news debate. When you’re fooled and forgotten, but long for the tongue, the touch, and you’re weary in every step, ready to take the plunge in some lonely pit. When you’re bitter, broken, unreasonable and yet quixotic, and you don’t know who you are, or what that means, what you’re writing, why you’re talking, but you’re stuck on the narrow lane, and you’re walking backwards with hands in your pockets. When you’re playing with empty bottles, matches, razors and verse, out against time, looking for witches with no real names, and ghosts who no longer care. When all they want to know is what do you do, who do you know, and will you kill. When shadows cast doubt on mirrors, the moon glints among the oaks, and the wind whispers of dying promises, while you try to hold the dust one last time. When your love moves out of town, another walks into a bar, and another turns you down from a cloud. When the system drains you, the princess cheats you, the fool plays you, and the thief laughs at you. When you’re roused again for the skies to clear, the voice to be heard, the curtains to fall, the violins to play, the wild flowers to bloom, the smile to flicker, but you can’t cause you’re faced down on a sink, below reason, above hope with a lung full of air, futility and lust. You’ve been here before, but you aren’t sure, because they’ve sold all the dreams in blue jars on the window sills, and it ain’t in the self-help books, nor at the end of rainbows, and it most definitely ain’t on the internet. You know how it feels, you’ve packed suitcases before, but what are you looking for, man? You don’t know, you don’t care, you string words to form a prayer. You’ve wandered these streets alone, looking for jazz, poetry and soul. You’re lost, you see two doors, handful of gods, you can either head home, or hit the road,