And I will build

Delicately, precariously

A house of cards

To satisfy the desperate need to create

To forget

My skilled hand flicks out

Shuffle of cardboard against cardboard

Perfect angle.

Two cards, reaching out to each other

Finding a balance, a compromise

A wary alliance

Only the two of us

I stop, sitting back on my heels

Simply staring

Like an architect after building something wholly wondrous

Faintly, over by the window

I imagine you standing, a scornful expression

On your broken, wounded face

I keep building..

Eventually there is one card left

My hand trembles as your ivory skin meets mine

Hovering together, impatient to finish

And suddenly

The shuffle of collapse

Our house of cards

Will fall

And I will forever be apologising

For the moment that the final card impacted

And fifty-two pieces of my heart..

..came crashing down.