CaptainOzz

I've always had a thing for you. You brightness shone through to me from the first day you swept down and interrupted my solitude. A small pile of gyoza "for the new guy" you said and bragged about your new boots. Came by to show me them later made up, but you'd grease stained them working the line; I told you how to get it out with baking soda. I've always had a thing for you. We shared our workadays crossing paths, too often for those above us, but not enough for us. Outside, we spent time learning each other we brought and shared, we missed and pined. Solidarity shared in being the old guard in a building filled with 18 - 20 somethings. Over 30s, working hospitality, we were work dad and work mum. I've always had a thing for you. Your staunch belief in kindness your heart of gold avowed against any cruelty. You've invited me to everything you've done out of care, out of kindness, out of kinship right person comes along at the wrong time, though I'm making time, I try and

There's a light in the verses of your sadness the one that bears repeating, a mirror to shine back your false reflection your repulsive inflection the defection of your deception Hatred its name, burned on your skin I wash it in lotion, a balm for your pains to soothe when you seethe I trip over myself, fall into the spiral that you're spiralling into and hurt myself, against my will the bruises, ruined emblazon You battle on exhausted beating your hands against the wall. An impossible fight, against unfeeling foe. Hatred it's name, burned on your skin I wash it in lotion, a balm for your pains, to soothe when you seethe The litany you lay upon your brow like the coronet of thorns; bite deep and hard the suffering you wear unwilling. Before; I thread my silver needle in preparation to try and mend and soothe and care and love; taut I pull my impellent wire. After; I pray at the shine I've sanctified my monument to the love we've occupied an obelisk unbreakable, towering

I never told you how much I loved watching you play Stardew Valley. You'd always marry the guy you said was most like me and you'd run your farm, while you told me that we'd get there someday, somehow, our own Stardew farm. We'd excitedly make plans while you played, they always involved us being together forever. You always knew it'd rain on the third day and the best route to take, how to get the stardrops and how to win the galas. You knew the game inside out and backwards, after seven years I'm not surprised But I was surprised when you told me that you wanted me to go after the self same seven years. I shouldn't have been, with hindsight. Occasionally when I'm at my weakest, after a bad day or a panic attack I'll cry and cry because you're not here anymore and because I miss the comfort and safety you were I miss the home we built and the cats and the life I made with you. Hot tears of shame and smeared lenses that deep, longing pain in my chest. I had a few

Her panic ran it's course and the flooding eroded what all I had built for us In life, I harboured and built to make safe and secure the home in which we lived Plenty we had, shared but control was what you wanted most. And you got it. Eroded, I fell into your raging waters shattered, among your unforgiving bedrock weathered away until consumed by eternal (at the time) sadness. Alike the Rhodisian colossus, I, fallen into swirling maelstrom dark and deep, endless ocean. She was not you, the sea I have loved her for longer than I loved you, or anyone The ocean knows I am hers She won't take me before my time this is not my time. But with you: I was not allowed to be loud, I was not allowed to be sad, I was not allowed unless it suited you. A guise of caring, insidiously, a broken thing to fix. No longer; now broken, the fixer. recalling once who I was beginning to rebuild under another roof, where I don't belong.