Laundry

What are these gifts that we’re given? These injections of time-released trouble, slipped between our cells so young and carried unawares into all our endeavours?

I used to say that I was all my own, lived like a second-rate Aphrodite, risen from a sterile sea. Because to live another way was to acknowledge all those choices were not mine to make. And how does blame fix anything? Better, I thought, to insist that all my sins were my own. But here I am, leaking legacy onto your sheets.  No matter how sincere my apology, it’s still a mess.

I could leave, like I always have, and close another door on the stains I’ve made. Take another plane to another country and find another bed to foul. Or I could stay, just this once, and do your laundry.