I wanted to tell you many things, about pain and patience and people. I wanted to hold your hands and feel them in mine and close my eyes as I learnt the shape of your fingers. I wanted to be with you through blood, sweat and tears. But what was there to want if I could never get?

Stranger, you were the part of my heart that I’d emptied in preparation for you. You were the baby shoes on our doorstep. You were the still blue walls, unforgiving and inscrutable. You were the wooden crib below the window. You were the nights I spent crying. You were the days I spent laughing. You were the calm in a world of cruelty.

Stranger, you are the space that was not filled. You are the baby shoes stuffed with haste into shoeboxes. You are the walls now white, white as pain and brutality. You are the crib we couldn’t bear to sell. You are the nights I spend unsleeping. You are the days I spend crying. You are the calm in this cruel world, asleep when we can only dream.

You are the way love gets choked between my teeth.

You are the day that passes, and you are the same day that returns.

You make me realise just how repetitive life is, how monotone and inevitable.

You make me shake when I see someone else’s child.

You make people pity me; pity which is a useless, practised thing.

You make me convulse on the floor as I cradle my head, seeking consolation in my migraines.

You make me love pain, pain for its stability and certainty and cold, hard cruelty.

You make me forget about patience and pain and people. My eyes blur and the lights dim and for a moment I feel you in my arms, the familiar weight of a small child. My knees buckle and I lurch and the world returns with sharp, painful clarity.

You make me never want to want again, if only I could get you back.