i mourned
us
on the train back.
North East to London,
Norfolk into Suffolk into Home.

England,
a green, scarred patchwork,
blistering apart while i sit.
A woman opposite tries to coax the
context
out of me; the entertainment,
before we're pulled into Liverpool St Station.

to credit my memory -
it frames itself nicely, my mugged up
glasses.
a sunbeaten, reddened, ruddy face -
holding back.  swallowing the
outburst -

"i let myself believe for once."

we sit.
the quiet unbroken.
save for the sounds of me
steadily
getting further from you.  

the sounds of me steadily getting further from you.

i mourned us once again.
ten months in and now
six months out
filled with immeasurable moments later.
there was no woman this time.
and only without her
or us -
i found the truth to say

"i let myself believe, for once."

the most painless way to leave is
non-arrival.
self sabotage as absentia.
the only loss
lacking malice.

i did not want you to get close because
i did not want you to get too close.

i did not want you to take up space for me as i did not
want you to want the same from me.

im not sorry i didn’t want you
im sorry you did want me

self-sabotage as non-arrival.
self-sabotage as a convincing half-truth.
self-sabotage as a refuge.
self-sabotage as the lesson.

and who's to stop me?
management
have managed
their time productively.
                                       shudder to think
                                       they'd begrudge a
                                       subordinate the time
                                       to blast their feelings
                                       off the clock.
leaning over window panes
that lack
balconies to catch
their workers.
                                     my 1-1s have started and ended
                                     with a heart in my mouth
                                     making it harder for the words
                                     'i quit' to get out.

can i just pivot off of can i just piggyback can we just swivel can i put a pin in you and sew up the wounded look that face carries to the coffee machine every lunch Oskar take some sick leave or just leave at this point we haven't identified your fit and our culture of inclusion excludes delays in action i just don't understand how personal problems seep into the workplace what its been five months which is half the time you were with him can't it
just be let go?
just let me go
you're being let go
i want to let go.
                                                    ~ HR will be in touch. ~

We lasted 10 months
to the dot.
it seemed almost comical
how a relationship
could be so self contained.
i wondered-
looking at the freckle on the flat of your hand
whisky coloured on the smooth brown expanse—
if giving too much was really a problem I’d have to solve by myself.
the redlines we’d both crossed
reappeared in your eyes
i couldn’t understand where the stress the pressure summoned itself
begging to blow you up
but I could understand your hopelessness when you said you don’t want me to disappear.

it was only after that early morning walk to Starbucks together where
for fear of
wasting a weekend of sun
mourning
us
i debased myself
holding your hand, putting you piggyback  and running
like if i could make it to the finish line you’d give me a consolation prize and take me back.

watching videos in your halfway home
feeling your heartbeat
slow in my arms
believing it meant
this coldness was going to
melt away and
we’d rematch and be free

Until you spoke so casually
about the life you’d now get to live
unbound & free
the tautness of my heart
snapped me back to reality
cursing until my tears choked me.

i remember
packing myself away
you standing over me asking

“How are you feeling?”

like a taunt
with my fingers
grasping through the clothes
I brought to spend
in the sun
pushed to the back of
the suitcase
I stood and
unleashed all the truths
and half truths
and lies
unspooled
months
of love
in moments
to try to leave you
scarred and raw;

“you never loved me you never meant it really you want to be free you aren’t sick you don’t want to be my friend you don’t know what you want you were lying to me and now you wont even fight for me”

but you stood glacial -
and I realised it  -
was hopeless you had already moved on -
and all ive done was -
sentence myself to exile -

remembering
the day after
a date in the grasslands
where our necks
ached on earthy blankets
and legs mottled by sweet kisses
delivered from flies.

my god the
jealousy
that they had known intimacy
of the softness in the calves i took to
sleep that afternoon we met
filled the short
but beautiful
sunset
with melancholy.

maybe here you found
i held codependency quite closely.

so
you took me to one of those superstores
that sell
beds.

                                   "i have a friend who's closing he always makes and double folds the quilt because it makes him feel like someone's mum."

you half shouted over
the motorway behind us- the demanding
yet
secondary conversation.

how
i wondered, did i end up here
                   - the boy i liked 6 months in -
laughing between
his downy hair and tap touchy fingers
now
so proudly leading the way
as his
friend, tired & mischievous
ushered us into the theatre
of infinite fractal bedspreads.

                                                 "hurry up so i can close to give you your privacy i'm going for a smoke."

spoken like any true
east London mum-
all ciggie ash
and true love.

i got to watch you work

which was flattering to say the least.
to stand beside
kings and queens
doubles and singles
being bent
dragged and persuaded
to your whimsy.
watching the curve of a bicep
seized up in delirious rearranging
                         - the muscles of the neck betray the youth of love-
until a masterpiece emerging
before us both
was realised.

                      "at least now we can cuddle without the bugs...or at the least these are bed ones?"

i remember
unwrapping the currently occupied smokers
carefully settled blankets like a first birthday
gift.
sliding under them,
with my shoes kicked away in eagerness.
your arms
not yet scarred with indecision
pull me closer till i forget to breathe....

this is it.
the mattresses connected sheets and sheets and sheets of feeling and this is it at once to cover and unravel against the texture of the cushions the springs the feathers locked away this is it like the words i whispered through the skin of the pillow your arm not so much pinned as smothered below the crook of my neck and this is it all there is is the smell of us in this beautiful moment that latches me to the frame in my mind against my back with the weight of the future this is it the pressing pressing pressing at the touch of our palms the touch of our lips the distances we'll learn to walk alone or together or side by side but not able to look at the path we tread perpendicular to our hearts this is it this is it this is it it it

....then i breathe.