I'm standing on a cliffside.
Watching as this tide.
Turns.
So quickly.
And the prickly.
Grass.
Under my bare feet.
Sways in the wind, summer breeze so sweet.
In a storm.
Black clouds block out the sun.
This is the end of the Earth, where I run.
To.
In the rain.
And I sit on the cliff.
Watching the sun set.
Breaking the blockade of clouds.
For just a few seconds.

And it beckons.
Me to follow.
I jump, let the sea swallow.
Me like the sun.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Try to catch my breath.
In the depths.
Of the ocean.
.
.
.
.
.
I sink.
I dream.
I balance on a knife's edge.
Reality or the nightmare.
Which is which.
If I choose wrong, can I make a switch?
Still sinking.
I wake.
Into the nightmare.
-Harry

A flashback

Two green candles for the bathroom, to eradicate the clinical smell of the chlorine detergent. Two pink candles for the bedroom, to make the light softer. I light them with a glittery flashing lighter, bought at a car boot sale. 50 pence. Bargain. I remember another lighter, it was simple, green maybe, not with a button you press, but a little wheel, I could never quite get it to spark, on the balcony, in our flat, when I was seven. This was when husband mark 2 would leave for a work trip. My mother and I would watch his dark silhouette submerge himself into the shados of the street that would eventually take him to the train station. We would wait, and there was a fumble, a flash and a waving dot of light, a flame from his lighter. We did the same in return. It was magic for me then, I liked my stepdad then. I had no idea this was one of the little quirks him and my mother had, for me it was a test of communication, an indication of attainable distance.

-T

“FACT” BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI

careful poetry
and careful
people
last
only long
enough
to
die
safely.