M  

The sun hangs half-hearted in the face of another post-
modern ending and I’m driving home, and that’s
that—another day down. The clouds stumble across
my eyeline, like I wrote them there. In this light, that
night seems distant somehow, like the dried-up cleaner
fluid that haunts the corners of my windscreen. How
we were in Kingsland—how you talked only about
yourself. And I let you. I’ve been mid-way out my body
for the last couple of months, pooling in a quiet, little
stupor. When you asked me to be honest and I couldn’t.
Not with you. Not with myself. I keep driving. None
of this is what I was hoping for—not really. But, on
Thursday night, M and I scoured the aisles of Tai Ping
and I let myself unwind amongst the spring onions and
coriander. The fluorescent lights hummed and buzzed
in a kind of symphony. Inside the green basket, all my
uncomfortable thoughts, swinging back and forth as we
walked. And I thought, for the first time, here, right
now—I am seriously so tired. Tired of nestling myself
amongst these minutes just to watch them pass me by,
of talking and not being heard. The way you erased me
in conversation, trivialising my pain. You spoke and
I didn’t exist. Now, M is putting the ramen in the basket,
and when we drive home, Lizzy is on the radio. I feel
at peace. And somehow, I’m older, too. I settle in. And
tomorrow—

Brecon Dobbie

Brecon Dobbie finds poetry to be her place of solace. She writes to make sense of things, often without meaning to. Some of her work has appeared in Starling, Minarets Journal, and Poetry New Zealand Yearbook.