"Tomorrow morning, that footstool goes!"
And I'm left to listen to my own voice's echo,
As it bounced back off half-painted walls
And round corners without the skirting-

Next weekend's promise still etched in pencil.
But faded past the point of a stranger's notice,
And even your mother has stopped commenting,
On the second landing's crooked light fixing.

I must have asked you a hundred times before,
To throw out that footstool in the hallway.
Bought at some junk shop, three streets away,
And just awkward enough, so that I stub my toe,
Every single time I walk through the dam door!

The same door you painted pink to annoy John,
Next door's tenant with a grey tweed suit,
And a hate for anything even mildly creative!
God he hated you! With a passion unmatched.

At least he did-

Last week he said how he'd admired you.
He said that you artwork was unparalleled!
You would have snorted in his face,
And asked him "what else you would expect?
You were a genius with a paintbrush after all!"
I just nodded and smiled.
You always said I was too polite to others.

That footstool you put in the hallway...
I try, but I can never throw it out.
Unlike the ashes, those I-

Your mother has them. Above her mantle piece.
She wanted a way to keep you close,
One that would match her interior design.
And I wanted that horrible urn out of the house.

You exist more in a footstool than an urn.
Though your mother wouldn't agree on my thought.
She never did appreciate your...
I think she referred to it as 'taste'-
Though some of those conversations are lost.

Like I said, she's stopped about the light fitting,
I'm hoping she'll leave the skirting alone soon.
Apparently I'm foolish to leave things in this state.
"No one wants a house half finished."
She seems to forget that I still live here,
And there are memories I refuse to erase.