Light green as the lime trees we grew among,
my memories are tinted, tainted, stained.
Green with envy, I remember I hung
around. I remember all of the pain
just as I remember the waiting game
I played. My carpet grew a hole, footsteps
wearing it thin like my patience. Your name
still brings a lump to my throat. Did your footsteps
fade as mine did? Did you grow tired of it?
The pacing, I mean? Do you watch the stars
and think of our dream to be astronauts?
I write. You program. I feel and you are
calculating. I watched an empty chair,
an empty door. I breathed the empty air.

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I am a PhD student at Royal Holloway. I write speculative fiction and poetry about boundaries, crossings, and the post-apocalypse. Twitter: @ctmpoet. Website: www.ctmpoet.wordpress.com