The House That Was A Home

We left the house that was a home
four months ago.
Exhausted
by false promises,
little action, and anticipation -
it was a home in everything but
words during that time. The time
taken for Heart to connect with Mouth.

The boxes I never will forget.
Big, small, weak, strong – a wall of
cardboard opposition; Trojan horses
that, try as we might, we could
not close our eyes and forget
all about.
Their contents deadly only to our sanity.

As a home, it was the backdrop
to adolescent fantasies,
was the place for
arguments and imaginary confrontations
with friends, critical thinkers and the future
The bathroom,
sacred with high walls
that accepted the weight of my ambition,
was a romantic setting for
falling in love, breaking up, and
making up years later
at the work conference of
my dreams. Mirror
in its lonely place above the sink saw it all;
permitted my eccentricities and
never told: my friend.

The living room, stage to my Sophoclean
dramas, promised a naïve reflection
charity activists, media acivists, and hairy, beardy band members.
Christmas tore my heart with its
painful beauty. Already I wanted to
remain within the looking-glass.

I broke my fortune cookie, as always,
eagerly,
too eagerly – not realising that
my future
was written on the surface in the palest ink within.