There is no doubt about it:
You have always loved me.
A leonine love.
A love that swells in the womb and the heart
From the very first twinkle in the eye.

Hit play.

Your eyes are swampish,
Mistrustful and marinated in cheap wine,
Shot through with blood, preserved in your own saltwater.
Those alligator eyes
That watch your girls,
Watch your girls board a train and draw away
Into the rest of their lives.
Leaving you stewing in twelve years’ worth of regret.

Years ago,
I used to pinch your forearms -
Watch the skin crepe up
Between my four year old fingers.
Thin blood. Tired skin.
Silently you eat your breakfast of pills and toast at the kitchen counter.
Throw in a horrid hacking cough to remind us you’re still here.
You always write everything down.
As if to tattoo it into your memory.

If you’ve locked the door behind you, it’ll be alright.
If you’ve got half a bottle left.
If you’ve left no trace on the bathroom carpet.
If you’ve woken up in the morning.
You can feel my eyes watching you.

You spend your days watching
Daytime TV, eating salad cream sandwiches and
Hit the bottle at a safe distance from noon.
Safe enough.
Your lipsticks have gone stale,
Now it’s porous skin, sweat stains, grey hair.
I find you poring over bank statements and local newspapers.
Scouring for a job, you say,
And clippings of your daughters
At school functions, clasping exam results.
You keep them in a cereal box that we covered in paint
Age five. We’re in double figures now.
I get drunk on weeknights.

Rewind.

Hold me.
Ball of flesh and screams
And you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.