Published in SINK Magazine, Issue #3 https://www.sinkmagazine.co.uk/
We didn't make it to utopia, you and me.
The mermaids were weeping at the gate and from their eyes
Poured oceans,
But I am not a thalassophile.
Their song was supposed to be lilting but I felt myself slip
down
the arpeggio of their voices,
losing traction on the smooth, slanted porcelain of semi-quavers.
We are out of tune, missed our stroke of serendipity.
Skimming stones on the beach to try and reach
The other side of the sea,
But we are afraid to get wet and
When the tide rolls in, we flee.
Life peeled a clementine
and the segments didn't align.
Like frosted gemstones, murky and crystalline
Glinting menacingly from the other side,
they taunt us with what we could have had.
These symbols of frivolity that I wrap around myself like a veil
Pour rubies and sapphires onto the aisle of our love.
They make it difficult to walk.
The ground is littered with the eclectic regalia of a
broken jewellery box
And I drop your ring, watch it shatter,
Watch diamonds and I love you's scatter.
These fragments of our paradise now puncture holes in the soles
Of my feet, rupture the labyrinth of my veins.
Soon my blood paints a red carpet beneath me.
Royalty.
I can only gaze forward towards the empty alter
Our utopia; except we were missing a piece of the mosaic.
Now, behind my photos of you, hovers an ethereal figure
Gaunt and pale, made translucent by ambiguity.
'Here comes the bride'
But where is she? Nobody expected her to crush her own fragile heart
Yet the remnants of it are delivered to you, still warm and resonant
with the mellifluous melody of us.
I may as well carve the words 'I do' into my flesh,
Soft and inviting like that of a peach, clammy and sickening.
It is easy for you to dig your nails in.
The harp string breaks.
It curls limply in my hand like a deflated promise.
If we can't have bliss together, we will both suffer here
on the wrong side of the frame,
Trapped by four right angles of disappointment.