CW: Contains references to grief, mental breakdown, and emotionally abusive relationships.

The tiles talk to me in my sleep. Outside in the rain, sliced peaches sit and rust in metal tins. We laugh in the windowsill, carving them one by one, your big wide-toothed smile runs with syrup as you stick a fork straight into the can. Back to tiles. I sit collecting thoughts on a mantelpiece of memories not far from here. Think of picnics on pebble stone beaches, a father and his son spread ashes to the wind. The waves speak mourning and you hear your brother’s voice. We watch in silent, flawed respect.

Think of postcards, scrawled in blue ink. Faded photos by your bedside. I’m wearing your shirt, five white roses in the corner. Think of peaches, sliced peaches in all their juices, sitting pretty on a sunwashed morning. The state of tiles on bathroom floors. How all the glass shards look like chances—to hold them to the light and see the prism of your love, scattered in all directions. These mantras work like clockwork, like prayer. Red drops on a corner shop floor. Plasters paid in pennies, in silence. I paint something like apologies between my teeth. The man behind the counter doesn’t blink, sees only red on red on clean, clean tiles. It’s 2am. I’m holding out change, instead of answers to the question in his eyes. He looks from hand to hand. Peaches, I wish it were peaches.

Words failed me again tonight, rotting in a nest under my tongue. I swallowed down salt water. Each night I slept with my back against the wall while, at the end of the garden, a heart hung out to dry on tethered lines. I’m holding out for change, but the answer isn’t here. I stand. A body not yet mine leaves the room. Something like home but a heartache. Something like hope, but harder.