HOLLY EWING

Loose Ends

You were a collection of beautiful broken pieces.

Trapped in a lost body. Expected to stay the same day by day, yet when the world changes why don’t you? Pastel pink highlighters draw your outline but colour cannot cover black.

She opened a door you’d locked. Twice.

Because you wanted someone to walk in and hang custard-yellow curtains or mint-green blinds on the rusted hooks. Take a trip to IKEA, why don’t you?

You’d got used to the silence. Your silence.

Grey clouded glass towered over and people saw you as they would from the sky. A ride in a pink balloon or peering down a golden skyline.

She bought you Jenga in a cream-white box and told you that your broken pieces were like the blocks.

You would laugh until you cried and your stomachs ached.

She was blue and you light grey. Sitting on high plastic stools with purple folders and the perpetual smell of Bunsen burners now locked in grey cupboards. She would pass you questions on white folded card and tell you that she would never need to know this in the future.

You turn the radio on and change the curtains. She was always leading. So you lead too. Stories in yellow and dusky pink. She packed boxes of greys and blacks.

She tied your loose ends.