Nook

  Nights are colder now. I'm burying myself in blankets. Her blankets. But somehow I'm thinking about you. Do you remember those Sundays? Your building, a defiant little bundle of bricks. An inhospitable apartment, those cubeish rooms, an icicle infestation - I kid, it wasn't that cold. But we'd wake to the Siberian onslaught, a glacial inhalation assaulting unready lungs. Firey frost throttling the throat. I remember. I remember yearning for the first opportunity to steal the warmth off of you, taking that kiss. Your lips. My lips. Writing verse, stumbling sweet stanzas soon displaced by frenzied prose, ecstatically incoherent, starvation guiding the pen. Climaxing, not an inch of separation. Sweat and sheets, cocooned, dormant again. 

<<<

  There's me, making coffee in the kitchen again. Being somewhat neurotic, I'd always insist on preparing the coffee. Only I realised the relic like status of the Cafetiere. Gloomy priest of the beans, I would perform the requisite religious rites, pay homage to the Great Gods of the First Mug. Still see your flamboyant kettle, that big, cumbersome thing... remember how it would shake and shuffle as the water came to the boil - its clunky little dance. Vibrating with volcanic intensity. You've got to concede though, I'm a pretty f*****g competent Cafetiere wizard. 

>>>

  It doesn't feel real, your absence from this city. With you gone, everything that was backdrop is now foreground. It's as though your presence somehow subdued all the misery, terror and hopelessness that's written into the physical architecture of this metropolis - emotions congealing, a natural by-product of the endless waves, human tsunami, in and out. 

<<<

  Now I feel the venomous hiss of the tram doors as they open, a gargantuan beast that devours me, it's tragic velocity transporting my murky consciousness through the drunken and dizzy derelict sprawl. I hear the tortured sounds of the homeless, gaze with an unholy ambivalence as their litter corpses stumble and slap the cold ground. 

>>>

  How did you do it? How'd you banish it all, cast it away? 

<<<

  I'm writing to a ghost in a red dress. There's every chance I won't send this. Won't trouble you, intrude - won't be the thing protruding through the letter box that you grasp for. Won't be the warmth in your heart. The smile on those soft, pretty lips. Won't be the tears in your eyes. The thing asking things of you. The hurt. I'll only be the ghost in the black shoes, dissipating as the morning mist does, thinned out by a warm and happy sun. 

>

Your Contemplative Phantom, ruminating 

(about the past, about everything) 

P.S. We laughed a lot, didn't we? We laughed a lot, I think

30/08/21 

   

Reviews

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Sweetly nostalgic and brilliantly crafted. I found myself empathizing with the author. I like the strong descriptive quality and the gentle pleading aspect which lends itself to reveal the tender heart. Thanks for the poetry. It may be in story form but I think it's poetry just the same.

[C Peril]

Thank you so much for the review Fabian. As always, it's very much appreciated.

I can't believe that you were hacked! It's a reminder of the fragility of our digital existence, in a way. I remember an ex of mine that would frequent a website where she compiled some of her written materials as part of a big collaboration with various people from the internet. The company that hosted the site ended up shutting down, and there was a mad dash to retrieve all the content that had been uploaded onto the site. I hope that nothing like that ever happens to WC.

Hope the schooling game is going well.

Warm regards,

Your friend, C.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

It's happened here before. The lesson is, back up all your files in two or three places. And hard copy. Hard copy can't be hacked.