STILL

STILL

There's a silence when I breath

Almost the silence of water, the silence of trees

I hear it inside me

A constant hush

My heart beats just

In a tin drum way

A warning to slow down

To  keep at bay those reactions that bubble under my skin

I'm always slow and quite on the outside

Timid she calls me

I remember walking along the lake with her when we first met

The surface of the lake was frozen with a thin layer of ice

She said, "you are just like this lake,

still, calm, cold and unmoving"

She didn't notice complex patterns frosting the ice

Chaotic currents under the surface

She should have realised

Instead, I smiled at her innocence

We watched pink dust sink the day behind clouds

The pylons in the skyline betraying the calm

Now she spends her time worrying all my worries

Fearing my fears

Whilst her own are self contained

Growing old , being alone

Forgetting herself, forgetting me

She takes photographs of her reflection in the mirror

'December 15th 2006'

'January 22nd 2011'

'May 10th 2016'

'Today'

She wants me to remember these moments

All the days we screwed, all the days we didn't

All the days we argued, all the days we didn't

All the days we cried, we never did

It isn't the dates she might forget

Or what happened, or where she was

It's her own self

Her feelings

It's the way I stamp myself across all her memories

Changing them from 'Me' to 'Us'

From 'I' to 'We'

Sometimes she screams

A noise raging from the pit of her belly

Gathering speed and nearly leaving her

But she strangles it in her throat just in case

She breathes her silence