A fiver and a stick of gum. That’s all I took when I left you. Ribs throbbing, nose bleeding. No refuge but distance from you, your warm arms that squeezed air from my lungs, while cold heart never number the pain. I drowned in your eyes and never made it up for air. Until now. £5 and a photograph in my pocket, brothers at arms. ...

There’s a room in my house that’s full of memories, of all the days we spent in the sun, sitting in the park and watching the cricketers mark the same worn-out paths. Watching dog-walkers in winter with their tiny ornamental dogs in tartan jackets whilst we talked about angels and the day we might leave each other. It’s full of the colour blue where the sky caresses the still ocean on a calm sprin...

Afterwards, all I’m left with are broken dreams and promises, the smell of burnt love letters, and a sound like static on the radio, mixed with the noise an engine makes and the clash of steel pans, and the rain falling in inky pools.

***

In my mind, it’s night, and the birds are screaming, the foxes shrieking, babies howling.

It’s raining, not a heavy stormy rain, but a thick mist that gets in...

we parted that night

all tears

and broken promises

shattered hearts we thought would never mend

you moved on and I moved away

as far as I could get whilst still being

within

earshot

of any news that might say 'come back to me'

it never came

and as everything changed, I thought about you daily, every move I made,

every place

every journey

every news article signalling a changing, darker world...