Brooke Forbes

There’s a vintage couch in the corner of a whisky bar and I’m drinking you in, slowly, solemnly, in a light like melted honey.

Sitting across from me, you’re an evanescent ember of being.  

Low-lit spaces, for low-lit faces and fragmentations of light that flicker and fade; fragmentations that take you on an inward journey and simmer so softly with delight.  

You’re like a folk song, played in Norway, at the whimsy of fantastical creatures.

You’re like a rough-cut quartz rock, pulled from a local river, now dangling from an outstretched neck, capturing tricks of light as you gesture with a whisky glass in hand.

But the flame is soft and the light can turn quickly, in these corners with yellow-filled hue.

The blackness flickers, against the golden-lit embers, and we trip up, we strip down and we are taken back a step.

What can be found within the black void? We wonder, tempted by its endless depth.

Can we drink it, too, from a cup that evaporates into thin air at the sense of human touch?

It’s a memory now, these inner-city dwelling, where we once sat.
It’s a memory now, these warm feelings in cosy dim-lit corners.
It’s a memory now, you and I, sitting across from each other.

The blackness has set in and I can only sit in dimly sit in corners on my own.

I called you up last night, but you forgot to take me home.