Tuesday 28 May 2013

Albatross

I remember being told I don't care
While you turned your back on the small
Things we shared, packed the kids in the car
And drove out of my life
You with the tall stories and the changing colour
In your hair, your tunnel vision
The stacked up life's tragedies, a 
Catalogue of woe, woe, woe...
Poor you.

How I'd listen to these stories, empathetic ear
A million times, all told
Until I could recite them word for word
Only to be told I've got it wrong
That's not how it goes, I don't want your
Sympathy, but feel sorry for me anyway
Because I want to imprison you in these bonds
The handy ex-partner who knew what to say
To cut deeply and how to hide the bruises
So you say

Or the explosions of tears and the rage
The flight of a mug, or a hand
Exploding on a wall in a tea stained SPLAT
Or the red starfish mark across my cheek
When I disagreed with your latest outrageous claim
Or the old faithful wall of icy silence
And the mile wide chasm between sleeping bodies in bed
Or the exile to the lumpy couch in the spare room
Because you said

Then, the barbed tongue when I talked of friends
And the question: "Did you fuck her?"
Green eyes, pouting mouth, hands like claws
More screaming; always screaming
While you talked at length about your sex life
To anyone who listened, making up what didn't happen
Just to get that reaction, that interest
That you pretended not to see in
My eyes, which only ever looked at you

Here I am now, having taken the hit, and
Taking the fall, blameless, not I
Innocent, maybe. But who knows?
My heart has been scarred and broken and frozen
Too frozen; I'm the actual used goods you
Purport yourself to be. But that's okay
No sooner than the ashes of our love have grown
Cold you find solace in another
And fill his head with the same shit about
The ex-partner...


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