IF I WERE YOU

I had a little more time to walk along the seafront tonight, and in the stillness of the evening, an idea for a poem occurred to me and made me chuckle. It’s one of those ones where I don’t feel as though I’ve explored it well enough, but it captures at least something of where I was going.

I thrust my hands into the comfortable pockets of my Fatface jacket and whistled to myself some words I feel like I’ve heard a thousand times. If I were you. Ha! Isn’t that a silly phrase? There’s no physics that will ever let that happen so why are we hypothesising it as a possibility?

If I Were You

If I were you

And you were me

I bet we’d do things

Differently:

I bet the me

That would be you

Outdid the things

That you would do!

And would you do

What I would do?

If you were me

And I were you?

And who would know

That you were me?

If I had your

Identity?

So let’s prefer

To ponder twice

When giving

Unprovoked advice:

I think I like

Consistency,

So stick to you

And I’ll be me