Nothing
I said nothing
Just watched
through the window
a horror
a break in the soul
I said nothing
Just walked away
from the window
of suffering
a shattered crack in my soul
I said nothing
As I watched her with him
a broken promise
A dirty secret
A suffering to last me for eternity
Nothing left for me to say
how it was in that dark house
airless and tobacco-stained
yellow as teeth
(the ancient paper painted and curling)
how it was to open new eyes
each day on the blankness
of their old griefs
(the piles of books flaked and wormy)
how I tried to grow
furiously and formlessly
into a void
(the greying net of carpet on the stair)
how nothing I could do or say
ever met with anything
but quiet scorn
( the silent foggy growth in the pantry)
I cannot tell you how it was
still too unrecognisable
even to myself
( the unmended glass, and pipe, and tile)
to be a child in a house where
childhood was disapproved of;
to be without help
(the cracks that gaped in the bedroom wall)
in a house where help was seen
as shameful;
to be born against the grain
( the dampness of mould in the unheated bathroom)
of two people already so
worn down and despairing
that simply to feel
( that garage full of unmendable things)
was to willfully defy;
that to need anything
was to selfishly demand;
( the unflushable
