A House Somewhere

The way your silence infiltrate speaks volumes. Opinions so quiet, now you've been found out. Deafening. Missing the fingers in your mouth. Making sure your tongue is free. A worm missing soil, a snake cornered. No grass to hide in.

I did nothing. Precisely. A turncoat coward. Watching other lives turned upside down while your own stumbled along. No one now to hear your complaints. Or cover your little taste for big women. Little big man. Without the honour. Others now turning their eyes from your choking.

Those times you flip into the electric. Nobody there to catch you when you fall. Mind your head. Mind the gap. An empty fall into beyond. Coming round to the shame. Such shame we sought to help with.

So long ago, I feel embarrassed. Years of regret. She became your wife. Sick in her sink. Now you're sick of her. But can't leave. A sad photocopy. Second best, with blurred outlines, hard to make out.

Illness that needs support. The crutches gone. The walk of shame. Stuttering in memories now erased.

Rocking the boat when you've lost the oar. A sea without maps. Home with a whore.

That hurts. Like it should. But you'll never know. Waiting and wanting, never allowed back to shore.