67 TILNEY CLOSE

Our first home still looks the same.
I realised when we drove past it
how time has changed us
but not it. When we first moved in there
it felt cursed.
Blown apart by a gas explosion and rebuilt,
it seemed to whisper ominously, "I am the Phoenix.
I will outlive you!"
It's previous owners had become phobic
after being blown through the window
while still in bed. So they'd decided to sell.
But fear's restless spectre still clung to the very structure.
It confirmed my idea of life: impermanence, uncertainty.
Birth, life, death -
and too little time in between to achieve our goals.

How I disliked being alone there. The walls
seemed to creak continually,
so I had to play music to drown them out,
both day and night.
Gas in the pipes?
Would history repeat itself?
A long way down to the garden
with the rolling hills beyond.

We'd taken possession
amid the newness of plaster and paintwork:
a facade that concealed all that had gone before.
Would our lives cease abruptly: roasted alive
in a gaseous conflagration? Holding my breath
to avoid inhaling the ghosts
that still clung to bricks and mortar.
Youth shouldn't be so morbid - and yet...
our first night there, I broke down.
The guilt almost killed me. You'd practically
bankrupted yourself to provide a home for us.
Then all I'd wanted was to escape!
The unfamiliar terrified me.
Beautiful furnishings, spectacular views.
Ostensibly, everything I'd ever wished for:
possibility of living the dream
of domestic and romantic harmony. Suddenly
we had achieved it.

You, yourself, were my whole life:
lover, father figure, and all the girlfriends
I'd never had. You were saviour and protector
who stood between myself and life's cruel blows -
and all the might-have-beens. I had accepted
that you knew what was best for me.
But a strange morbidity frequently rolled
across my consciousness,
engulfing me in it's dark shadow.
You pitied my inability to see past it.
Onward through the rainbow of darkness I stumbled,
desperately seeking a moonbeam to cling to.
So we struggled on, hand-in-hand.

For me, that first home was our identity,
our first Christmas,
when I felt safe just being with you.
For you, it was a form of independence - and a good investment.
A solitary electric fire was the only source of heating,
apart from the laundry closet.
But I think you were happy too, just
being with me
and cuddling up on the sofa to gaze out over the town.

There, externalized, was our destiny foretold:
the distance, the passing seasons, and images of our older selves,
still together, in an uncertain future of laughter, tears
and devastating tragedy...