Early June

By Megan Stalham

Don’t commit, it’s way too risky

Leave those pondered-on contracts unsigned

Move back home with mum and dad

It’s not what you want, but it’s time to pack.

Tear your heart away from here like stringy blu-tack from stubborn, white walls

And how you dreamed of moving abroad (lol)

Say goodbye, see you later, we’ll catch up soon (bullshit)

You know it’s forever.

Unplug stiff lamp wires, box away your favourite books

Even if they’re heavy, weighing your wrists down, back to the bookshelf.

Kitchen stuff in the big Tupperware box, other shit in the folding IKEA trundle

Throw away those plants, they take up space, deforest your room – it was never yours.

Peel memories off the collaged wardrobe, even if the varnish clings to the corners.

Drag furniture across a beige, matted carpet, imprinted like a rain-soaked beach

When you’re rushing to pack up the buckets and spades, fold away towels

Untangle hairy tentacles of wool from veneer table legs

Unclench the hooks from the door

Even if the metal has welded itself into the fireproof paint-slicked wood 

Then force it into plastic crates, soon to be a game of Tetris in the car boot.

Cry in an empty bed on your very last night, hot tears trickling down to your ears

The celestial posters you once stared at are curled up at the bottom of boxes

Like poor little dead woodlice

Frames, polaroids, postcards, gone. Nothing to see here but a desolate cube

So empty that your vision fuzzes, fills it in, atoms, blind-spot blurred edges

Until you’re floating in the middle of nowhere, of nothing

Wake up. Load the car. Last look. And leave.