Snakes & Ladders

It was our game. A ritual of some kind. 
sitting down after a simplistic store-bought dinner to play Snakes & Ladders. 
You told me that it was your favourite board game on our first date, 
so, I got you one the following Christmas; neatly enwrapped in an organic cotton gift wrap.

But our habit rapidly mutated into a sickly oddity, 
like attending a doctor’s appointment because your mother forced you to; 
Rolling the dice became a sort of inconvenience. A burden. 
It always landed on a lower number; it would have landed on a zero if it was logistically possible. 

One day you just didn’t show up. 
Your stuff was gone. The pot was empty, and the takeaway app was de-activated. 
The game was indiscreetly hurled on the dinner table, with pieces of the gift wrap still tied to it. 

I still play the game alone sometimes, 
after a homespun yet nutritious dinner, 
but this time, I tend to get a bit luckier with each roll.

Contingency Plan 

My mother used to advise me to always devise a back-up plan, just in case an unprecedented complication abruptly halts my aspirations. I held that advice close to my heart and kept bridging one opportunity to next, so I can leap forward, even if the high ground I’m standing on caves in and tries to swallow me whole. 

For years this advice worked, and I felt unstoppable. I felt as if the world was my arena, and I was the gladiator, heroically ripping through rapacious lions and merciless crocodiles, as my insecurities withered back into the inner core of my body. 

Then you came, and my armour dissolved into pulpy gelatine, soaked up by the dehydrated earth beneath me. No contingency plan could have ever counterbalanced the penetrating rupture you spawned after your departure. The advice I solemnly swore to follow had betrayed me and I was left stranded, frail and hollow, back to my own devices... 

Itches that Can’t Be Scratched 

There is no medication for heartbreak. There are only rivers of regrets. Dispelling remorse into canals as memories start to decay. There is no medication for heartbreak, yet I still feel intoxicated by the layers of lies you meticulously embedded under my skin. A fictional future you knitted into a warm beige polyester sweater we both could fit into; your fingertips enclasping mine, your breath cascading into my myringa with a supple lullaby. The sweater was perforated, and I was the one enlarging the holes, with my bare hands, to loosen the grip, and pull myself out of the abyss. While now I’m finally free from that rash-infested sweater, there are still some itches, that just can’t be scratched.