I’ve taken to wearing body armour every time we talk.

I think I’m starting to get used to the bruises

littering my ribcage

from the bullets you spit when I ask questions

you don’t have the answer to.

 

You don’t like getting backed into corners.

When you hit the wall

the grenades come out

everything fair game for utter destruction

because better a ruin

than something half built.

 

There are no warning alarms for you.

Tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions

all of these have their tells

no matter how small

or how shortly beforehand they come.

 

You on the on the other hand

explode without a flicker of explanation.

There’s only fury and chaos

and the burning as my skin melts away

to expose every bone in my chest

trying to keep you out of my heart.

 

Time is supposed to teach us,

practice makes perfect and permanent

so why do I still crumble

when you take a sledgehammer to these walls?

 

It seems you need no more lessons

in exactly how to take me apart.

 

---

 

I noticed over the last couple of days that my draft file on wordpress is getting a little, well… silly. There are sixty-three drafts saved in there and most of them are uncategorized and untitled, so I’ve got no idea what exactly they are without opening each up individually. So that’s what I’ve been doing. It’s Sunday which tends to be my ‘hey, lets clear out this cupboard I’ve not opened in- oh my god what it that! Why is it there? oh no! close the cupboard, close it now!’ sort of day.

So far I’ve found a fairly decent opening to a piece of flash fiction that I started in 2016 and I found the first stanza of the original version of this poem. I’ve only kept the first two lines from that stanza but I now have a new poem and one less draft too clutter my draft folder.

Does anyone else have a slightly chaotic draft folder? When was the last time you went back and pulled out the beginning of a post from weeks, months, years ago and decided to finish it off? Perhaps you’ll let me know in the comments below.