As I turned around to reply, she was gone.

The place had no soul or spirit left, and it was evident in the colourless walls, the unclean glasses, the empty eyes of the server who left me a menu card.

Or will you bloom into a new life with me? 

“It was where people crafted stories, my boy!”

We grasp on and we hold tight.

I’d never felt sadder at the prospect of not being a part of someone else’s story.

The infallible whiteness of the walls, the omnipresent smell of disinfectants, and the fields of artificial grass come back to me. Swimming before me are visions of smiling children and the legions of overworked childcare professionals constantly at their service. Every blink threatens to permanently relocate me to their world of ceaseless laughter.

It’s God’s funny way of reminding me that all that is received is a gift that is broken.

Dissipated, my thoughts wander finally taking refuge in sleep.

The curtain rises, silence engulfs the theatre,

You stand where you always have

The blue model of clay vices that sits in a house of glass

I pen misery with dark black ink that I draw from a hole inside of my chest

I stare bleary eyed as my lock screen tells me I have a new message.

The blue never ended here. The lights did not go out either.

We imagine ourselves.

She is broken but she is fine.

Hide yourself in my feathers, and I’m sure we can look for them together…

An unwarranted guide, tormented pride, a sheep inside of a wolf’s hide.

Death has always been there.