Test card

You didn’t ask me why I left suddenly
but if you had, I would have said
that it was the burden of memory
of days that smelled like comics and spent fat
and pavements like hot plates.

On the estate, everyone hangs out by the chip shop
not like in my prim suburb.

I didn’t tell you (how could I?)

but it was the dust in your shuttered bedroom

and in your voice some quality of longing
for that which is ineffable
that caused me to freak out.

They reminded me of being thirteen
and of choosing to stay in with the test card

to test my patience

against the stubborn geometry
of six steel strings
when everyone else was playing outside.

I didn’t tell you but that’s what happened –

a feeling of wanting something
so badly swept over me
that it was unbearable.
That’s why I ran away!