Grey streets repeating in morning mist. Turn offs to Leicester, Mansfield, Nottingham, Chesterfield, falling into uneasy sleep coiling through back roads in midnight towns and waking up to more roads, not knowing if the same or a different town. The cruelty of coach journeys in the dead of night. Not asleep, not awake, beset by all the insecurities of life. Neck twisted in headrest, one trainered foot wedged between wall and seat.
Pulling into the peeling sheds of Sheffield Coach Station sometime after four, rubbing bleary eyes, stumbling down steps onto cold concrete of morning. Grasping for phone; a surge on Uber, walking windswept streets waiting for prices to fall as in cardboard corners the homeless slumber on.
And finally a driver, middle-aged, sweet smelling skin and water bottle rolling on hoovered mats and incongruous dance music pulsing out. The car winds up the hill into morning as mind stretches blank against the window's waiting pane.
Key under pot left by Fran and up the stairs she's snapped covers cleanly over a tidy bed. Hearts scooped in reflections on dusty mirrors, whispered notes folded onto pillows, this is a giving form of love I struggle to repay. Old hoary insides splinter at the touch of gentle kisses, for so long know only to harden as cold winds lash towards the cracks.
But I'm trying, trying, and as lids touch in the centre and the world falls inwards maybe there's still something within the fractured wood beating softly to a rhythm of its own.
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