A million conversations 

Knowing her laugh like the back of his hand 

Which had held hers a hundred thousand times

As they read the lines in each others palms

A thousand possible futures imagined, side by side 

Each uncharted, each painted portrait gathering dust in a corner 

Never discarded but never put on display

A hundred big little fights, half hearted reconciliations, a broken kettle unable to let off steam 

Countless angry words swept under rugs

Until the brooms started to feel out of reach 

Each I’m sorry laden with resentment 

Twenty-two episodes of a once favourite show unwatched

By people with short memories who’d forgotten how to be on the same side, 

instead they watch the walls they battered creep back up 

Until they no longer see each other, 

Five tarot cards and the vision the seer sees is division

Long buried doubts resurrected from shallow graves

Even the finest bridges sometimes burn

And at the sum of it all, two broken hearts

or maybe just one.