It was a dark and stormy night. But Jeremy didn’t care about that, because he was nowhere near a window and hadn’t the foggiest idea what was happening outside.

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Standing at a bus stop in Brighouse, years ago, an hour after a job interview. Wearing a shirt and tie, black trousers and shoes. Stood there on a cold grey day wearing my long grey coat, a size too big for me. I bought it in a charity shop in York, with a girl I used to know. I wonder where she is now.

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For a few minutes nobody had come in. Marcia looked at the wall
clock. Still almost an hour to closing time; these new extended
opening times certainly made the evenings feel long. The borough had
instituted it as an attempt to liven up the neighborhood, but it
didn’t seem to have reached the people living there yet, as the
library was not very busy.

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- Cl.

She sat on our bed and crossed her legs. She wore jeans and grey Converse trainers and a tight black sweater. She smoked her cigarettes and lit them with my lighter. She put the ash in an empty shot glass. I sat on the hard floor. She watched the window and the buildings. Empty bottle in the closet with my jacket. Day. She spoke to me in a flat voice and said things that I think I should remember now but don’t.

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The river below was grey and warped as a bedsit mirror. Hire-boats tethered for the night bobbed on the dark current. The sky was empty. All the birds had found tree branches for the night.

I’d found the trick. Remembered it. Tears dried on my face. They took with them the warmth from my body and I was stood with the cold biting into my cheeks as the lights of cars washed over me like searchlights scanning for a body in that river. Every surface was slick and shiny with frost, and on the side of the river there were round wooden tables outside a bright pub. I heard the cars pass behind and every time I heard an engine whine in acceleration I thought that car was going to mount the kerb and plough through me.

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Poetry by Blessed Bea

Butterfly

Awakening in darkness…Encased in hard flesh
Using and abusing her precious body -thrashing-
to tear her way to release …. she’s set free

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- When it all came down

We didn’t exactly argue. And, after we’d stopped speaking, after she’d left, I still loved her. Neither of us had shouted. Neither of us had cried. There had been no accusations, no pointed fingers or pointed words.

We’d sat at opposite ends of the room, though, and we’d not looked at each other very much. And as it got dark, neither of us rose to turn the light on. The telephone had rung, cutting her off, and we’d both waited in silence until it had stopped. Neither of us had made any move to answer it.

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