Three months

'I bought a two litre bottle of milk today.' Your sister said. 'I’ve just had enough with going to the store every time I run out.'


I looked at her. 'You know that's what people do. Normal people.'

'Well, I'm not normal', she dismissed, 'I think it’s all the tea. I’ll drink it, just because I’m at home and it feels like that proper, homely thing to do, but then when I really feel like a cup of tea... no milk.'

I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it again. What makes a home? Endless cups of tea. White cushions and big living room windows. Cats, dogs, children, rugs, shoes by the door. Is it the smell of someone else as you come home? Anothers toothbrush, hair on your pillow, socks mixed in with yours?

I have trouble telling the time now that you're not around anymore. I always wander in, more late that I intended, caught up in the haze, in the storm that is my mind.

I think I'm becoming unstuck.

I call out to you in the middle of the night. I wake up to myself sobbing. Weeping. For what? For what could have been. For our grandchildren. For the breath my lungs deserve. For my sleepless nights, staing at the ceiling with a mind full of shimmering dark.

No thoughts. No sounds. Just movement.

'You know when words just don't seem to be enough to describe what you're feeling?' I whispered to a stray cat.
He looked at me. 'Why are you talking to a cat? I don't know the problems of humanity.'
I stayed crouched, staring him in the eyes.
'Because you're the only one who will listen.'

It's a saturday night.
I have four different windows up, three different types of paper, all trying to convey the one feeling deep in my core. The one which doesn't have words that evoke what I want to say. What I want to feel.

So I'll pretend that it's alright. That I've said all I need to say.

That the chasm you left is slowly filling itself once more.