Humbled by darkness

I returned home on Christmas Eve
to find the house
which had been punctuated by a thousand
astral semicolons
when I left
was humbled
by darkness

I reached for the light switch
but there was only your hand
and your embrace
It was the gateway to a garden
where every living thing
has perished
from insouciance

“When we were first together”
you told me
your eyes as dangerous as feral dogs
“you would kiss me in the morning
before you left for work
and then
one day
you stopped.
It authored
a divide
between us
so wide
that it could never be bridged
but I knew that if I
gave it a name
it would own us.
So I called it nothing
and that became
its name.”

You took my face in your hands
and led me to the reflections
in the ink stained hallway mirror

I recognised you
but no one else