When I lived alone
When I lived alone I was clean. Good. I drank jasmine tea in the afternoons working by lamplight in the gloom. At night I read by candlelight. Drank Rooibos. Played piano to the guitar, guitar to the piano. Sometimes I sang, to them both, to the room, to myself, alone. Sometimes I went out. If I left for more than a day I’d stroke the walls and tell the house to be good without me. Occasionally, people came round and made the still, contained air busy. Mostly though it was only me, me and the house, being good together. I slept curled up against the cool stretch of its ribs like a cub. It breathed gently into me. How I loved its scent of damp sandstone and old warm wood. I loved how it touched on my mind and shifted its light to my mood. How it helped me be good. In the mornings I’d sit in its eye with a pot of good black coffee, reheating it on the hob as it cooled.