Pins and Needles

I decided to re-decorate the study today,
The familiar walls no longer inspired me.
Orange and brown, I had outgrown their face,
What once was so modern was now out of date,
When I painted them I was unable to see,
A time when that love would be washed away.

I had forgotten you and yet there you were,
Crouched behind Jane Eyre and dust.
I had put you there when love consumed me,
When the words appeared to cut right through me,
But now they’ve lost their violent lust,
The carnal passion of erratic care.

I fingered your thoughts with Nostalgia,
They had once been the rhythm of my life.
Reading into each kind comment you made,
Never dreaming their meaning would slowly fade.
And yet here I sit, six years on, free from strife,
From the moments of that fervent trauma.

I stripped the walls today and filled the holes,
Smoothing their pocked faces with care.
Reflecting on the past I had just revisited,
On the stillness I was now gifted with.
I did love you to the edge of despair,
But pins and needles displace torn souls.

It is after vast hurt a numbness ensues,
A quiet calm induced by inertia.
When all energy on tears and fear is spent,
An odd vacuity gives reason space to vent.
That letter is now but a scar of an era,
A vivid colour muted to pallid by years.

As I painted the walls white, I saw you leave again,
The memory at the front of my mind.
But it was distant now, the bones had repaired,
I no longer felt that pinch and break of the love we shared.
The aching loneliness had left me blind,
Now open eyed, I see how times can change.