Blank Walls

This house isn’t a home; it’s a coffin echoing silence and cradling a dead marriage. We pass each other like strangers in the night… never daring to lift our eyes from our feet or uttering a single word. Lives that once intertwined have now become untangled and separate. Love that once blossomed has wilted and shed its last petal. The laughter that once sang has been silenced.

Now he spends his days wading into his work; desperate to be drowned by it. I spend mine being deafened and taunted by the ticking clock and staring at a blank wall, wondering just how quickly a house can go up in flames.

It wasn’t always like this. This prison was once a wonderland of joy and happiness. In the early days we would run around and giggle together like children; kiss and fuck addictively like teenagers; hold each other and lay bare our insecurities and fears like adults. His smile was once a sunrise and his eyes oceans to dive into. I thought our Hollywood romance had met its happy ending. I was wrong.  

‘Sorry honey, I’m working late tonight.’

‘Oh, I’m just wearing new perfume.’

‘She’s just a friend.’

Like a love-sick puppy, I swallowed all his bullshit until I choked up on my own naivety. Of course, he denied it all. They always do. Embarrassingly, it took lipstick on a collar to wake me the FUCK up. I shouted. I cried. I threw things. Eventually, I surrendered to the numbness rising within. I’m dead inside. Now, looking at him is like looking at a blank wall – I see and feel nothing.