by Amelia Elaine Pearce
Standing by the window as light beams in, it’s clean.
The bed made, soft, inviting,
No need for tiptoeing around on a clean floor.
Show up.
Rummage through my drawers, grab and yank sweet silk and rip and fling every folded shirt, and pull drawers from safe cupboards and haul candles across the room grabbing blindly for the next, and tear bookends from books and hear their thud heavy on crumpled fabrics and twist and prise posters off my walls and shred them senselessly and show up, and mess up my clean, so I can prove to you it was once, clean
He took some furniture with him when he left the first time,
I am proud of the way I’ve decorated since then, replaced the pillows dented from our soft embrace, the dimple of the back of his head and a half crescent of mine.
I am proud of the sheets that do not smell of us, does he notice that now?
When you leave again, be careful, don’t hurt yourself and don’t look back, I shall be too embarrassed, I have shredded the supple under of my feet on shattered valuables, and do not worry about the scarlet streaming from my soles making swampy carpet, it will come out, and I will pick up the shards and start to clean again
Amelia Elaine Pearce is a writer and poet currently based in the UK, with roots in the Middle East, she is born and raised in Dubai. Her work explores themes of performative healing, love and loss, identity, and place. She has recently begun sharing her poetry more publicly.
January House Literary Journal 
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