swim

I can see her swimming in the thick black mucous of despair, treading frantically, head just above the dark sticky mess. And I can see that part of her is desperate to be dragged out but the other part is just too tired to care if her head should sink below.

And while I know how her heavy heart threatens to drag her under I am a lifeguard that never learnt to swim; reduced to shouting useless instructions from the edge in a helpless panic.

Nonsense

A thousand million miles away. But the distance doesn't dull the aching. Instead it amplifies it. Aching amplified by space and distance and all that exists between us and all that keeps us apart. And yet I promised her not to long for something else for some other life. I promised her I would be in this moment. Now. But I lied. Strawberry coated, crunchy-hearted lies. Not that I knew it at the time.

Two a.m. Shakes

It had been a week of restless nights. Sheets piled at the foot of the bed in a knotted innocent mess. The lovechild of jet lag and two am anxiety. Each night as he fell into the crook of her neck, asleep before eyelids shut she would draw his arm close around her breasts and listen as his breaths grew louder.

It wouldn't be long til the creaky wooden bed would shout out with his sudden jolt awake. Short of breath, eyes wide but mind creaking open slowly as the shakes would start. She would try to soothe his nerves with milky reassurances and tight embraces but they were band aids on bullet wounds. She knew only one solution. She had to stay.

But as she would try to hold his shaking hands lit by the moon creeping through the curtains, she knew she had to go. That if she didn't it would be her shaking in the early morning hours not with the fear of losing something but with the knowledge of having been to afraid to risk it.