Empty house

The stairs creak as she walks up the spine of the house,

feels the wild thing tremble

at her human touch. A foreign sensation

but nostalgic. A purr emanates from the fireplace

as it’s stroked into life.

Its belly is warm, fed

after so many years of being starved.

Recipe for moving

Step one:

Plant money seeds in pot. Research gingerbread recipes.

 

Step two:

Add feed to money seeds. Begin weighing out ingredients for gingerbread. Check against favourite recipe.

 

Step three:

Keep feeding and watering money seeds as they become seedlings. Mix gingerbread ingredients together. Stir well, taste-testing where necessary.

 

Step four:

Keep money seedlings safe as they mature. Pour gingerbread mix into wall- and roof-shaped tins and place in oven. Cook until fully risen.

(This step takes the longest.)

 

Step five:

Take out gingerbread parts to cool. Pick money plant leaves and grind into icing.

 

Step six:

Assemble gingerbread house using money plant icing. Use any excess money plant icing to decorate gingerbread house.

 

Step seven:

Plant more money seeds for use as icing to stop gingerbread house falling apart over time.

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Rooted

We see this heart and home,

smell its familiarity on each other

as if we’ve already moved in.

The post is delivered to your eyes and mine.

Our names are stout roots that weave themselves together

to become the key that opens the door.

Homemaker

I uncurl my toes from the carpet.

My stomach has a weight in it, cold

that rises to my throat.

It’s been there since this morning, after

I watched you hurry for the bus,

a smile lingering on your lips as I waved.

 

It only feels like home when you’re here.

When you’re not,

it’s just a place where I spend my time

running through the routines of life

without feeling I’m living any of it.

 

Home is where we will both be

in the future.

It’s hard not to jump forwards,

but rushing will only crumble

the blocks we’ve been trying to maintain for everyone else.

I know, once they’re solid,

we can claim our own, and make our own.

Our house, our homely home.

Home tree

In the palms of my hands I hold a pile of soil,

a seedling sprouts from the centre,

green and reaching, reaching

for the sun.

But I collected the seed from which it grew

from its future self.

A tree that stands grand enough

to be the heart of a house

and ever a monument

to the love of the couple

who have made it their home.

Home

Where is home?

 

Is it the place you’ve always resided,

storing memories as well as old clothes,

decorations, exercise equipment adorned with drying washing,

a teaspoon left on the draining board

after a hastily made cuppa?

 

Or is it the place where the people you love

greet you every time you appear,

whether it’s for an hour

or a week?

A place where you can be who you are,

no holding back,

and be totally, completely, accepted.

 

Where blood is not necessary to feel part of the family,

only warm smiles,

several helpings of tender sarcasm

and words that always bring

lightness of step

whenever they’ve been uttered.

Mirror Image

We’ve stood opposite for years,

a shroud of hazy shyness and intricacies of life

keeping us from really knowing each other.

Yet now we do, and it’s so clear

we should have been standing side by side

all this time.

 

An aromatic infusion

We fly up hills and across sprouting fields,

forwards ten years and back a few months,

all the while staying still and linking hands.

 

The roads are curved, never straight,

always interlocking at some distant point.

How many times have we been in this direction

and haven’t noticed?

 

I see us in a cottage

with a workshop made for inventing

and re-inventing.

Mathematical solutions and puzzle pieces

poured into a teapot with pages from a writer’s notebook

and left to brew.

 

The extracts merge together wonderfully,

a full flavour

of the years we’ve experienced in a single cup.

Liquid Clay

You hand fits in mine so perfectly,

I wonder if they were cast from the same mould.

I can feel all of you

in even the slightest touch.

I know our thoughts of the future,

and I bathe in them every day, thinking

one day,

one day.

 

The leaves are browning; coppers, bronze, golds.

You are silver. A river of it,

a mirror

that I can swim in to the house we’ll have,

with a library,

a dojo,

a room of puzzles only we can solve.

 

Forwards or backwards,

past or future.

Not forgetting the sweet moments of present.

 

 

Overture

Evening draws in,

the half-moon observes

your passage home.

Hours drip by heavy,

oil falling in water.

Unmixed, always a separate entity

to those wandering past.

Cigarette butts on the ground

avoiding the traps especially set

on waste bins.

The smell of energy drinks

left on the bus two seats down

marring the truest scent

of night.

Door unlocked, house is silent.

Signs of life everywhere

that need to be tidied before morning.

Before mourning.

Of what might have been.

Not of what is.

The aftertaste of what is

is natural,

no added sugar.