She Lives Alone
She lives in the 6am coffee
before the alarm,
before school.
The light on the water on her skin
in the shower,
in the way her feet are then
young and familiar on the tiles,
childlike in their delightful lace of bubbles.
She lives in the days he is away,
the half hour he is held up at the station,
the extra steps on the longer route home,
the moment on the doorstep
as she stares into the street
where she once might have had a cigarette.
She lives in the notes
that pull open the doors of memory,
to the gig,
to that time she danced.
She lives in the half worn smile,
the old gold caught in the eye.
After working in film and academic research Rebecca Shamash trained as a psychotherapist and works with a focus on the therapeutic use of creative writing. She has had work most recently published in Stand Magazine and shown as an animation on London Underground.