River Flows In You

Somehow the darkness lapping at the window reminds me of the night you began painstakingly stitching me together after the carnage that was Mr Ex.

I'd been published for the first time and we had just come home from the celebratory party where I began wedging my foot in the door and hoping it forged a gap big enough for me to crawl through. And, somehow, his ghost made the trek back home with us.

I sat on your cramped bed and sobbed this ghost lose while you held me tightly, replacing his touch gradually with yours, then ran me a bath to purge myself of a sadness that seemed unsuited for that evening, for the smiles I should have been wearing. Deep in the depths of that water, I think I found an essence of myself that had been stranded and striking for shore since he left.

And it reached port as we sat on the edge of your windowsill, claiming a sliver of night for ourselves. Our feet cooling against the rooftiles beneath us, we watched the stars and moonlight with the same intensity as I watch the night now, watching the darkness loop a memory back, its arms bundled with the peace I felt emanating from you then.