Steam

He'd wished it was fog, swirling and twisting

Draping over the unkempt garden.

He needed the gravitas,

The fallacious pathetic fallacy,

To cover his callous lack of emotion in what

He was about to say.

But it was just steam

From the back of her washing machine.

He'd wished that the piercing cry

Screeching over the roof top

Head turning

Ear splitting

Was the cry of a hawk

Punctuating his sentences

With portentous drama

But in truth, it was kids

Fucking with the car they'd nicked.

He wanted so much to care

Because once

He had.

Once he'd loved and once he'd sworn

That he would never have this conversation.

That he'd laugh in the face

Of anyone who'd even suggest he would.

Sworn time and again that as long as the sun shone

And the Earth spun

He would stay with her.

But times they change

And so do hearts.

He'd wished that it was foggy

Thick and enveloping

Holding them together

As once he'd held her close.

But it was steam

Disappearing, evaporating.

Just steam.