Another milestone was reached today. When you break up with somebody significant, it doesn’t matter how many years go by; when you realise they’ve moved on properly (and in this case asked somebody else to marry them) it still has the power to sting. KB was someone I was with for 10 years – all through my twenties and nobody since (and I doubt ever) will be able to match how I felt about him. I wish them both well and hope one day I find somebody else too.

We were but saplings then,
tentatively growing together
with fragile leaves and soft sprouting buds;
slowly winding a disorderly history.

Ten years that should perhaps have been five
saw us gnarling and grating.
Me, I was a heavy weight pressing you down
on roots you weren’t ready to bear.

So you slashed us apart
and drifted elsewhere
but you always seemed to be in view;
a skyline tainted with my love for you

People have been and plucked at my boughs
but the fruits are so bitter they don’t stick around.
With each passing year I seem to wither and sag;
a little bit more, a little bit more.

An Old Garden Rose, she entwined herself easily,
softened you slowly,
glittered in the roots that I’d cracked so well
and around her broke forth those heady blooms
and you suddenly seemed to glimmer.

I found out today you will be together forever.
So the whorls in your imprint will be hers and not mine.
It seems only fair.
She brings you the colour I sapped away.

The orchard I stand in withers and dies,
drying up barren; it’s scorched and hopeless
hemmed in as it is by a raging rusting fence.
Wanted. Not wanted enough.