Follow first from the faded curtains: blue, green and red, with frayed edges,

Lazily exhaling cold breaths of air like their last words, before

Looking onto creaking floorboards,

A luminescent pathway to the door, their light source

Several small scorch marks, marching in twos,

Too-large outlines of size twelves shoes that,

Have been so fruitlessly, scrupulously scrubbed, with

Hard bristled brushes, but stay, still together,

As a perpetual feature of the room.

 

Sometime mid-September, I'll remember you for

The thousandth time, or more, with a dry mouth and

Cauldrons of nerve-ending thoughts,

Leaping beneath bubbles with such sorcery, 

No witch could match its intoxicating tongues.

And though they won't spit anger, they

Still make me mull it over, to allow that feeling, like a

Wet t-shirt in freezing air, to slightly smother me with its

ice-tipped fingers.

Even though I owe you nothing, I still care,

But am no longer scared to ease the blows,

Those ones you threw so forcefully that,

It was scary to think again, in 

Case someone else broke through the defence and

Scored the winning goal,

 Another cheap shot, not earned,

You know what I mean.

 

How far have I come since you?

Far enough to know ten years were wasted,

When you seemed so important

in each of them,

Pictures building to become more beautiful,

like a well-aged wine, which had been waiting

for the right time to be drank, only

When we clinked the glasses, we  

sank stale tasting potion so putrid it made us

Sick instead.

It would not have been that

Crazy to think, perhaps it was your gift.

 

But I have given back now, in ways I would never know how,

Had I still allowed those handcuffs on my priorities.

I am glad for what happened in ways I still don't understand,

But that is what I hold onto,

Most of the time.

I still hope to prove you wrong, and will try to,

Without hope for your return, although

Sometimes I wish you knew how well I've moved on,

But there are strangers on the street who’d

Be more concerned.

There are no spoilers to expose anymore, my inconsistency of emotion

Only enhances my desire to keep taking

Chances, to eventually succeed, single-handedly,

Because to know I have

Not failed, is the only thing I need.