Once I dreamed of a world
filled with canvas and colours.
A dream to bring to life,
blank canvases with various shades and hues.
To let my paint brush speak for me.
To use up all my time,
to create landscapes, seascapes and portraits.

A distant dream it was, now broken.
My canvas remained blank,
my palette remained empty.

The walls still hum with what was said,
not in words, exactly,
but the way her eyes held silence like it was sharp.
I walk the length of the hallway barefoot,
each board creaking like it’s trying to confess
something I already know but won’t admit.

There is a hollow behind my ribs
where the idea of "us" used to echo,
but now it just folds inward,
a place not even memory wants to visit.
The kids slept through it.
Or maybe they didn't.
Either way, they are reasons and weights,
stars I orbit, unsure of my own mass.

I pour water and watch the surface still.
It doesn't feel like peace, just quiet.
Sometimes that’s enough.
Sometimes it’s not.
I don’t know which tonight is.
I just know I’m tired,
and tired doesn’t mean I’m done.

The ceiling peels in slow spirals,
not from neglect,
but from how long I’ve stared at it,
counting the flake’s hesitation before it drops.
The clock ticks without punctuation,
dragging each second like a dull knife
across something soft I used to need.

My limbs forget they’re mine
unless I remind them,
a muscle twitches,
a shoulder reconsiders its weight.
Even my name feels unstitched,
like a coat I keep meaning to throw away
but wear because it still remembers my shape.

Outside, birds call to each other
like they’ve never been tired,
like morning isn’t a decision.
Inside, I steep in low-level static,
a hum no one else hears,
thick as wool,
soft as resignation.

My father walked me down the aisle,
But my mother held my arm.
He went with me,
But we went not towards the altar,
But towards the door.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And the ***** rang through the church,
Humming through the elaborate crown molding,
Carved by my ancestors.

He went,
Not beside me,
But before me,
And I watched,
As he was illuminated by the bright,
Overbearing,
Texas sun.

My father walked me down the aisle,
But I did not wear white.
My father walked me in silence,
And I shed tears not for a man standing at the altar,
But for the one I would never see again.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And no veil obscured my face.
All eyes were upon me, but not for my pristine beauty,
Instead for my clenched jaw and furrowed brow,
Severe and fierce to distract from my glassy eyes.

My father did not leave me at the end of our walk to sit beside my mother.
She clung to me for support and sobbed breathlessly,
Loudly,
Unavoidably,
And I carried her with one hand,
My sister the other,
And walked towards my future.
A future family,
Not one person more,
But one person less.
I walked,
One final time,
With him.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And I will never forget it.
Hundreds of eyes isolating my family from the crowd,
Slow and muffled sounds drowning in the deafening beat of my heart,
Blurred faces staring,
Black heels clacking against the cobbled path from the church,
The anguished wails of my mother,
The whimpering of my sister,
And the wooden box that glided before us,
Pulling,
A string tied to our patriarch,
The pin key of our family,
Pulled taut and then snipped with the slam of the hearse doors.

My father walked me down the aisle,
Before I had a chance to grow up.
He walked me,
Out of the church,
Away from the altar,
Never to be walked again.

Muddy children
kick up puddles.
Thirsty earth
drinks and sighs.

Tired mothers
Lean in doorways.
Some laugh
and others sigh.

I bought a bed from a charity shop,
real pine, the heavy kind,
its honeyed wood still holding
the warmth of a young man’s hands
as he carried it up the stairs,
his bride beside him, giggling,
her palm pressed to the small of his back,
while the scent of fresh paint
drifted through the empty rooms
of their first and last family home.

That night, they sank into it,
the mattress sighing beneath them,
and years later, their children
would pad in barefoot at dawn,
toes curling against the grain,
cold feet pressed to their mother’s ribs—
just to hear her gasp,
just to hear her laugh.

Decades passed—
whispered arguments,
the slow creak of forgiveness,
fevered nights with a cool cloth
laid across a brow,
the quiet weight of two people
growing old in the same nest.

Then one morning,
the last breath left home,
and the bed stood empty.
The house was sold.
Someone shouldered its story
into a truck,
donated to a dim-lit aisle,
where I found a bargain,
its whole life
folded into the frame.