I woke up this morning.
My head hurt.
The room looked a little…
There were words
all over the floor.
Were they resting,
or were they broken?
Were they mine
or were they yours?
Words I thought could fix things
made them worse.
I heard them crying last night,
or was that you?
Pulling the words closer for comfort.
But they slipped away,
like sweet nothings in the morning light.
I tried to hold onto them.
I wrote them down.
But they refused to be tamed.
On the pavement,
but the rain washed them away.
Spray-painted the walls,
but the council painted over them.
I picked over the words you said
’til they were numb.
Dead.
Ghosts.
I stood by the river
in an Ayrshire storm,
in the rain and the wind,
the words at my throat
like a knife.
I let them go.
And I searched
High,
Low,
in the pubs,
in the libraries,
in the everyday,
in a pure morning.
And I found my own.
© Paul Andrew Sneddon
