Sincerely, Jennifer x

I am lost on familiar floors, 

asking questions of nature, 

when I know that she is forbidden to speak to me.

These are the places that we built, 

to your specifications, 

and with the concrete of your barging, broad shoulders.

Destined to be drowned by the dreary blue of your stormy eyes. 

I am making trouble for the memories. 

They are strict with me, unwavering and unkind,

and I think that their coarse kiss is what makes my return so certain. 

I think that I’d like to remember something more substantial, 

struck, and stuck by the bare bones, dying destiny, that was barely even born. 

I think that I want it to hurt,

but it never does. 

I am not numb. 

I am not the darling of a dull ache. 

I am not crying. 

I am not wounded.

I am staring at the Highlands, with another name in my mind, and another body in my lap,

avoiding the accusatory gaze of my Catholic guilt. 

All that I had for you was a desire for desire,

and all that you had for me was a loneliness that wouldn’t leave you, in the way that you feared that I would, and the way that I inevitably did.

Still, 

when I remember, 

I am lost, 

listless on a roaring train, 

thinking of the way you pleaded, 

afraid to use your words,

unable to resist using your hands,

both of us,

choking on the same realisation. 

There were so many trees in the distance, 

so many lighters in the glove compartment of your car.

I fantasised about starting fires as you fixed your lips upon my own, 

and your fingers upon my throat, 

but the leaves were just babies, 

breaking out of their slumber and smiling from broken branches.

They were so innocent.