Council is called at midday

On a Saturday
We pulled our chairs tight
Around the table

The ritual of being

And our voices were loud
Our conversations weighted

Yet we never heard

I opened my mouth to a
Strangled cry
Only to push it away

Afraid I would be found wanting

Ornaments and Fairy Lights

There is a space
Quite tangible
Yet unnamed

A hollow
That walks beside us

The void we have grown
To love
And fill
With all the moments
We have gathered
In the passing of time

A darkness we have decorated
To walk in the light.

The Easing

Blame
Does not lay at any
Of our feet

Rather it flits
From side to side unable
To find its home
But still sits
Heavy on our shoulders

A burden
We have carried for too long

Weighted down
Pulling us back into the dirt
In the hope
We might be halfway human
And find comfort
In the gentleness we ease into
Each others life.

Bored Games

Caught between games;

We were rubbish at chess,
I could never remember the moves
No matter how hard you tried to teach me
And I cared more about the pieces
Than the end result.

I felt bad at monopoly
When you landed on my squares
Where I’d built hotels,
Wiping the little houses of the board,
Then expecting you to pay for the privilege.
So I’d let you off.

And none of us should have to die
Leaving a killer in our mist,
Even if all the clues point in their direction.

Now we don’t play,
Just sit side by side pondering where we go from here.

When the dust has settled

We fought with such ferocity
That as far as the eye could see
In all directions
Was nothing left but waste ground
A ruin of what had once stood
Strong and proud

And we walked amongst it
Stepped cautiously over shattered remnants
Afraid of the dust
we crushed under feet

Too ashamed to acknowledge
How love had brought life down to its knees
And all that remained
Was the toxic air we fought to breath.

Quiet things

We will sit across from each other
Planted on hard wood
That digs incessantly into the angles of us
Ignoring the urge to shift
To break the routine
In case what we give it all up for is nothing
Whilst the air around us
Swims with these thoughts that infect
Harbours under dirty nails
To be picked at.