Burning bridesmaids & their candle wick plaits
A sunken hearse
A hug for your grandmother to slip fingers in her purse

Turning eyes away from her, when she tells you loneliness hurts
Back to wicker wood flats, with faulty electric outlets

A drunken first, young girl turns down a street in next weeks’ news
Where a reader concludes the printed words were just the work of the length of her skirt

Someone you actually knew
who despite all you didn’t do still tied their neck into a noose and
Left earth

When do you want me to walk forwards?
When do you want me to drop the ruse?
When do you want me to fall through the floorboards so to lay down beside them too?

I’ll follow your orders, whatever direction you choose
Because your pretty promises – forewords of renewal –
are all I can taste amidst the waste my brain chews
Still I’ve thought worse
So just wait to resume
intimacy in recluse