I saw you today. You looked different to the last time I’d seen you.
You looked different. But as we sat upstairs on the cold concrete floor,
You still looked the same.
Your eyes still burned with that ferocious intensity as they did when you were seventeen,
And it broke my heart when you couldn’t hold my gaze
Because it was too painful – too raw.
How I stared at you and you looked away –
Unable to look at my face
Or face up to the fact that it was I
Who had cut off your head and fed you to the lions.
And you kept saying that you were fine –
Though your voice was cracking under the strain of what I had done.
My decision weighed so heavily that it brought a dark rain cloud to hang above us,
And you hugged me so hard I thought my ribs would smash.
You handed me a red jacket in a blue carrier bag.
I don’t know what it was meant to symbolise.
But I put it on straight away
And wore it when I left
And I felt safe in the knowledge that
Your two hands had crafted such a
Gift
For me.
And I walked around in a big hug from you
And it felt like all my broken pieces were merged back together.