Sincerely, Jennifer x

7am,

she was my alarm,

loud lullabies at the wrong time of day,

her voice following the melody of the clattering kitchen as I followed the smell of toast to the table.

She had my school tie in her hands,

throwing it to hands that were too tired to catch as her wife watched the whole scene unfold from behind the pages of a broadsheet.

Dark tresses descended down the back of her garishly bright dressing gown,

and she sipped, through painted lips, at strawberry milkshake as she prepared more breakfast than her family could ever consume.

A gargling infant on her hip, harmonising with her nonsense morning medley,

she was a strange sight,

to anyone but us.