On that beach after last orders, the damp sand remaining
stable under our intoxicated feet. That smile of yours as
brittle as the shattered shells beneath our heels, the broken
homes of now long excluded occupants.

It had taken an age it seemed to reach this pinnacle, like a
weeping wound that was never stitched and left to turn septic.
I now bask the clichéd result that was promised for so many
decades and was now slowly delivered.

To seek an end seemed superfluous, to take advantage of
those Friday night vows which were welded together like
rusted chains, and to pass them through the loop of a paper
ring that tears at the first spot of rain.

We stagger up the concrete steps in cold, bare feet; your laugh
now as dark as the boarded-up shop fronts on the horizon. Any
light now completely absorbed, and as you move forward for
that last kiss, I stub my toe for the second time.

– Jonathan Butcher