Squeaky Hinges

I want to laugh at her. I want to be able to say something condescending and horrible and shrug this all off. But in that moment, sitting there almost nervous and embarrassed, telling me I was the first person to ever share the night with her and have the privilege of sharing her morning too, I could feel my heart clenching so violently I could almost mistake it for love.

She tells me this over coffee- stale and tasting of the burnt bottom of the kettle and soake up by store bought shortbread I scrounged out from the back of the cupboard. I wince at the charred flavour from one morning that she had sleepily brewed it twice. She scowls as she listens to the cupboard squeak shut from when I never oiled the hinges.

Yes, I could almost mistake it for love.

But that would mean it had ever left. That it hadn't left an indent around my bones and organs. The velvet carress of petals where the many vices of thorns had left me scarred over the years. Where my words were washed and pressed and folded until they lifted.

God if I couldn't feel it thundering in my chest and pounding in my head like it wanted so desperately to be released from my throat and whispered in that bitch's ear.

But that's just the dose of her poison, isn't it? I am soothed by the blanket of A4 paper and the familiar clack of well worn but long neglected keys. Weren't things that were loved meant to change? To be supported? To squeak from time, like old bones?

The vulnerability that my bastard ex-wife had been trying so desperately to feign was displayed in cracked paint held in the body of metal on my desk, and the feeling of purging my words without judgement let me know I wasn't alone in whatever we were connected by.

My ex told me she didn't like my laugh- how it squeaked and how the box springs on my side were too loud. My typewriter never says such things, kissing my fingertips and begging for more and more and-

Well, my mother in law believes there's another woman.

We are inextricably interlinked; despite how resolute I've been told to act like we aren't.