Party Trick

'A party trick you’d say

when you stuck pins

through a layer of skin

upon your pale finger tips

wrinkled and torn

red and raw

but I saw

the other things

you’d sink into your skin

like liquid narcotics

and blunt catgut strings

a double elastic band

choking round your wrist

that the pluck of

made a ball from your fist

or the wedding band

that suffocated your digit

a finger or age

I was never too sure

but I swore

when your hair

no longer settled

as light as a feather

on top of fresh white linen

anymore

that I’d go

through the door

of the house

we once called home

back in the days

when we didn’t feel so alone

and a phone

was used for contact

not for Tinder and Snapchat

deleting the back up

for your messages on WhatsApp

But perhaps

in the midst of my madness

and the hole in my heart

we were meant to be a part

of the fucked up triangle

we pretended was love

but above all

the rise and the fall

the swings and roundabouts

through the make up

and fall outs

sneaking through back doors

when parents were out

the amounts

of love found

catered for the love lost

and each cost

each broken segment

(like the mosaic tiles

in your mother’s kitchen)

of my being

were worth the itch

that I can never quite scratch

for the past

I can never quite get back

two lovers entwined

like the rhyme

from The Twang

but you would never

hold my hand

a demand

I never made

but a wish I always had

to feel the touch

of a wrinkled finger tip

from the pins

and needles

that were always

getting weaved

through out it.’