good at this

I can do a full weekend

without saying a word to anyone

and the plants stay alive

and the washing gets done.

I have a system for the night.

I have three meals I can make.

And lately I say far too much

to anybody who has to serve me —

stretching it out, being a bit much,

asking a second question I don't need,

and I can hear myself doing it

and I do not stop doing it.

I'm so good at this.

Ask anyone. Ask nobody.

I'm so good at this,

and nobody gets good by accident.

Somebody asked me recently

what I get up to at the weekend

and I heard myself describing

a life with no other people in it.

And they said "sounds peaceful"

and I told them it was,

and it is, and that is true,

and I went and sat in the car for a bit.

It's not the alone bit that gets me.

It's how smoothly it runs.

I have got so efficient at it

that I might not clock it going permanent.

I'm so good at this.

I would give it up tomorrow.

I'm so good at this,

and I don't know how you get worse on purpose.