It’s chilly, it’s cold

Winds floating past, clamouring into your pockets

to hold your hand

But I don’t care

Because I’m walking these streets

In a different place

With the same face

Enamoured by these bricks and these windows

Thinking about the stories they hold

Because all of these houses house more than just housing

They house people

And those people have hearts

Hearts they cart, cart around

Wheelbarrows piling up names

And mounds, mounds of thoughts

Take this one,

This one right here

A quiet little street

Next to one busier

At the corner

With daffodils in the grass

And Christmas trees climbing up

Up to the eaves

In it is a lady

A sad lady

A sad old lady

She sits on her couch

No

Wait

She sinks

She sinks in her seat

Sinks into her tears

That she weeps

Missing

Missing him

She dabs her eyes with a tissue, overused

Those eyes as grey as the sky

Before folding it neatly

Placing it back, in her back pocket

And she stands up, brushing off the crumbs of her

past, and fixing her armour as she fixes her blouse

And she keeps doing the things she did with him

without him

Because she can

She can do everything herself

So she opens the shed

To pull out the lawn mower

Drinking her gin without him

Uncorking her wine

He was in this house but a day

Did you know that?

It breaks my heart

But I start

Start to see

Him