there was something different

maybe there was something different
about the way you spoke today
I don’t remember the words
just the sound of the waterfall
cascading over your lips
and onto the floor
maybe there was something different
or maybe I heard you
for the first time.

the breakup

dear bedbugs
I know that you love me
but alas, I do not want
to share my bed with you
our relationship is too one-sided
and I’m always asleep when you
want to spend time together.

autumn

there are only a few leaves left
they cling, tenacious, to the lower branches
daring gravity to do its worst

but I have already fallen among the others
my edges turn from green to yellow
and then to brown
the stiffening of rigor mortis
the first hint of my final decomposition

clearing the table

it started with the cutlery
I weighed it in my hands
building courage
for that first act of change

the knife hits the wall
lands in the corner
vibrating helplessly
[a wound discarded]
a little further
the fork sticks straight up
from a crack in the floor tiles
[still clinging tenaciously to life]

plates and glasses follow
sliding off the edge
as I lift the heaviness of habit
the fear of being wrong
the table overturned

its time to choose
a new china pattern

driving home

we travelled slowly
through the darkening tunnel
of an autumn evening
each winding our own paths
through a half dream-like
state of contemplation
surfacing from time to time
to smile and ask after the other
and then when our thoughts
became too tedious, too heavy
we sang along to Snow Patrol
until, finally, we were home

untitled

there is always hope
waiting just beyond
my line of vision

only sometimes
I am too tired
to open my eyes