P

It Stop.

She was the multitasking queen, perfect kids, perfect husband, perfect hair and an organic food plan seven days a week…perfect imperfection with her shabby chic shag pile, precision-ally chipped mosaic tile, aga scones, and reclaimed, retamed, Art Deco retro, grandmothers tat. A hat for every weather condition, a smile for every mood affliction, encyclopaedic knowledge of all herbal teas, middle range red wine and the still acceptable cliche of a wild boar steak.

We’re waiting. We’re patient.

82 years old and she’d never smoked dope, dope is what he’d said and dope is what she shouted back, not intending the joke, the ironic clarity piercing the fear but neither he nor she were laughing that day. The tears had flowed with the tea and lack of sympathy as she pleaded with him to make her proud, don’t go with the crowd, make a stand, make her understand… And then they were gone. We’re patient.

All that was left in the room was a broken guitar, the window, open, laid bare the ice in the night and on a rooftop, a starling.

It was not hard to hear… That bird that sang alone in the dead of night. He wished it. Dead before he wished it well. Some distant companionship bound. Them. A slow revealing empathy forced the window to always bare, their Loneliness, easier to believe it so. Before winter. Claimed him and others warmed to the peace. They closed their ears, curtains down.

Elvis was strangled by a woman last Monday. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw fucking jailhouse rocks, a billy goat naahee doesn’t cut it, mustard, custard, sickly sweet but without the talent of an in cahoots flea shackled with thread to a miniature hairpin bike, I fail to see your charm because the arrogance – the arrogance – exposes you to my contempt, first stone and all. That. Jazz.

We’re waiting.