Marriage;

1. Getting married was their last hope. It wasn’t pink cheeked radiance and doe dew eyes like the flipped pages of a bridal magazine. The quiet desperation was that a wedding, a celebration would heal the hole they were in.

2. White cannot cover black.

3. There was a passing glance on the dancefloor, a knowing look that said ‘I don’t want this.’ She swallowed it down with a sticky red shot and plucked flowers from her bouquet giving them to people she didn’t like.

4. The new things helped of course; a house on the cul-de-sac with similar un-pairings, a flat screen TV, some bronze striped wallpaper they tried to hang together.

5. Soon the brushed steel was thrown or worse left on the bedside table like a hole. A sign she’d not been a good wife.

6. Recently she threw the album out. Pained yet hopeful smiles. Crushed transparent sheets. She believes there had been a love once; hard rice thrown on faces.

7. It wasn’t their fault.

8. They’d tried to create life from the cold bruised cheek of their still silent firstborn.