On a long road in Tottenham I walk with my eyes on the drains.
With one love behind me and one more still giving me pain.
A drunken Turk heading towards me from twelve o’clock
Well at least I know how to avoid touching someone today.

My hair’s in my face and the morning is damp and unkempt

A crisp packet launches a hit to my head in a vent
A car wheel churns up the rain from last night on my shoes
With the hurricane inside me, I barely can note the event.

I’m small and he’s huge and I’m straight and he’s zig-zagging hard
He’s smiling at me through his stubble as I go on guard
I swerve to the right then the left as he mirrors my moves
I try to outwit him but he holds only trumps in his cards.

Now we are so close I can see the sweat on his brow
It seems he’s not slept and I think of his mother somehow
The size of his arms makes me wonder if he could kill me
And I notice that I want to die and I’ve broken my vow.

His arms fell around me, my sight went to black in the folds
Of his coat that smelled spirits and old milk and Marlboros and mould
We traveled through space on a comet of made out of our parts
Then he stumbled away in the grey and the past and the cold.

There are times I return to the folds of that coat and I find
Some measure of comfort in knowing the wounds of our kind
A moment of grace is just one step away from the fall
The eye in the storm only opens to those who are blind.