tilting a ceramic cup of tea towards the sun, i imagine all the teas we have had together. many mornings of waking up early; sitting in the quiet sounds of a television before the storm. the afternoon we made cake for the first time — checking on it over and over again, and still burning it a little — i made tea while we waited. for many years you sang songs in the evening, and stopped completely in the last few. with spiced fruit and laughter at the small garden, and then in the stillness of a purple sky when you stopped speaking to me with love, finally — we had tea. a ritual repeated over and over, it gave us something to hold onto when a home was crumbling around us. in moments of joy you called me daughter, and other times you didn't. and somewhere between that; and between the balcony and the table, stillness and chaos, sanity and paranoia, home and hell — we had glimpses of normal. food and small talk. news about the neighbours. sweet yoghurt. the bird we rescued from the bottom of a tall tree. crisp shirts that came back from the dry-cleaners. the flowers you embroidered on handkerchiefs. and tea. in the quiet, and while people spoke on the low-volume television, we sat down and finished our cups.

here, as the sunlight paints the ceramic golden, some of these days and parts of us have wilted in our old garden and decayed into an ugly-marvellous disappearance. here with my tea today, years later, i have grown a new leaf.