Ship Comes In Every Day

This is my submission for day 11 of The Halls of Pandemonium from Bradley Ramsey, as per the picture below.

This is inspired by ‘One Hundred Days’ by Mark Lanegan (song can be found below the piece):

Clouds scatter and move across the sky,
forming white and dark grey streaks
across the darkening skies,
turning navy, looking stormy.

Wind whistles wildly, where
trees tentatively twist.
Leaves looking listless,
moon moves malevolently.

Every night I sit,
watching this scene
play out, with differing
amounts of beauty and agony.

I sit, my soul seared
by a long-gone sun.
Watching the twilight
is a balm for the burn.

My own vices and behaviours
have pushed you away.
I sit in lonely regret
my mind constantly strays to you.

My father used to say
one day my ship will come in.
I didn't know what that means.
Still don't really.

I walk through the streets sometimes
sit on the stone seats,
staining my jeans
with the moss that grows over them.

I look out at the docks,
as busy as they ever were.
They gave my family work,
I see ships come in every day,

none of them mine.

I have days where I feel clear,
my mind clean and focused.
Then the same old poison
finds it's way back to me.

A boomerang, crafted from
defeat, despair and failure.
It all goes black.
I wake up. Three days have passed.

I remember very little, when
I'm lost like that.
I only know that I see you,
dream of you.

Occasionally people check on me,
as you once did.
Concerned I'd progressed from booze
to something more anesthetising.

It was just sleep and booze though,
part of a repeating cycle,
that I can't get out of.
Running round my own hamster-wheel.

Sometimes on my walks,
I don't even make it
to my spot by the docks.
Habit drags me elsewhere.

I talk to the girls that live in the shadows.
Some sell goods. Some sell themselves.
I talk but don't stop. Don't purchase.
I can't pour them down my throat.

They meander back to their corners,
I meander back to bars,
and into random houses I fall,
eventually falling into those dreams again.

Walking back home after
God-knows how long,
shaking. My own cigarette
burns my hand as I struggle for grip.

I find the waking hours in dark rooms
both the worst and the best.
Feeling physically spent, though
occasionally feeling hope.

One day I'll work this out,
one day I'll be something good.
I'll wait for my ship,
which will surely come in.

Feeling fatigued, feverish,
head hanging, heavy.
Dreams drift, dazzling,
ships, soon sailing South.

Mine is amongst them,
my father did promise,
my dreams they did show me.
Those ships, they bring me back you.

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