Head knows it’s the right thing to do. But that doesn’t stop body rebelling with all its fury. It knows what it’s missing; the warmth it doesn’t want to walk away from, the self it doesn’t want to walk back to. It’s the slowest of walks. It feels like rebuke, with past privileges surrendered or withdrawn. A pause, a look at the floor, a last moment for doubt and weakness. Then I take my place in the spare room.
I take my rightful place among its jetsam. Among the books no longer deemed worthy of public shelves. Boxes and filing cabinets archiving all manner of redundant history, propping up obsolete music players which sit gathering dust. Behind them, old sports rackets testify to past enthusiasms, energetically pursued but long since abandoned.
I will take my rightful place among them, though I hesitate to close the door. Ever to close these doors but you’re gone already, I know. I wake and you have already passed through this place like a ghost. I am alone in your house, wondering what on earth to do next.
