by Sophia Smout

You left in a grey morning.
It’s funny, now,
The bits that I remember so precisely:
How the faint clouds brushed together
In the damp, smoky air;
And how the sun hung, palely hovering,
Against the granite sky.
You left in a threat of storm clouds
And hail, in rain and thunder,
In rivulets, chasing their way
Down steamed-up windows,
Dashed from their paths by the breeze.
You left in a haze of anger,
Of tension; of scratchy, aching tears;
Of both of us; of screaming words we didn’t mean
Until the air turned blue.
You left your confusion:
The ravelled string of our lives
Which had snapped and lost its way;
Branching off and out
Until we couldn’t tell what was and what wasn’t,
What had and what never had been.
After you’d gone
I walked back inside and took up a teacup
And held it gently, like you would a child.
My insides were in its hollow shell.
Its one wide eye was yours, empty now
Of life or colour or resemblance
To who you were.
You left your absence in my life
On that grey morning,
While my pointless tears burnt and blurred into one
And the wind stole your imprint.