That Slow Ruination of the Heart

A poem of havens, hearths, and bygone days

It began with the wallpaper Peeling slowly off corners coated spiderweb dreams light a flickering as if they were an SOS to a tomorrow that still sat asleep, waiting. It led with the wood floors, scratched and deformed From time and water and the chattering of Frantic footsteps in empty halls. This was supposed to be a haven, but the walls are coated in disappointment and rage, boiling over like stew on a stovetop did you see how the bedroom somehow morphed into a cave, whereupon the walls we set myths and stories of the ancient wonderments of a child’s mind. Plastic starlight faded in the candlelight of strange nights awake trembling, trying to whittle keys from words, a folly of endless time. The hedges grew over the rocks. reddened by a constant dawn shadowed by monstrous sunsets that only made sense later when naivety faded like helpless hearts. My grandfather’s compass clasped In my shaking hands North is broken, drifting like the once blue house now a dusty brown, as if nobody lived here as if this house's soul faded into a winter storm and never came back. The clocks are spinning backward. The hours have stopped and started to rewind and I’m running footsteps like heartbeats running from the slow ruination of this heart that forgot the key to this

old house.

© Bradley J Nordell 2023

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