Precious

Precious

I visited your house; I still have the key,
A trespasser with no business there,
A solitary creep, one lonely afternoon,
Dusty sunlight fills your rooms; I inhale slowly,
Learn to breathe louder than my quickened heartbeat,
Ashtrays and empty glasses sit whispering about me
And that familiar smell fills me -
Breathed out cigarettes
And consumed alcohol
Lingering here,
Mingling with that cheap aftershave
That I used to hate so much&;#8230;
Now it seems so precious, so precious, so precious.

You still have that photograph,
A captured moment of last summer
When we both could laugh,
Trapped under the same fridge magnet,
You and me in faded colours with turned-up corners,
You and me in two different years' worth of sunlight, but it's no
warmer,
Today and yesterday share a moment
And it's so precious, so precious, so precious.

I am just a shadow of your former life
Intruding on the present,
I walk ghost-slowly, unsure, hesitant,
Alight with the intensity,
Wading through the memories,
Parading in what I see,
Charting down the difference.
You still have that mug with my name on it
Sitting on the kitchen sideboard for all to see,
And that shirt in your bedroom, a present from me&;#8230;
You still wear it?
Yes, that is precious to me.