Sincerely, Jennifer x

Soft, swirling curls in a knot,
jotting down the world around me from my back garden,
as autumn’s chill beckons to winter,
and the sunset spills across my freckled face, at four PM.
This is what I will do, when I am old (if I get there).

I look at my grandmother,
and I know that nobody could love me as long as she has been loved.
I simply know that I’ll be alone,
but I will have my words to keep me warm,
and the promise of pushing myself off the cliffs of Dover when I tire of trying to make it through the day.

I will have Grandchildren who don’t want to visit,
because I am a mean drunk since my woman walked away (either by choice or by death, she never stays when I imagine my future),
and I lock them in the living room,
reliving my glory days,
done up like Baby Jane Hudson,
struggling through a verse of Swipe Forever before collapsing into the chasm of my misery.

My Son stops by, without the babies,
begging for me back,
a ghost he remembers from his bedroom, back in the old house,
a spirit who told him stories and sung him lullabies,
but I simply tell him that the Ouija board is broken,
and so am I.