Suburban Decay

September dissolved,

Into rainy bureaucracy.

Darkness encroached into the evenings,

Lullying summer to sleep.

Tired commutes provide spiritual refuge,

Where,

Under the red gloom of stoplights,

The metronomic windscreen wipers lure me,

Into the relapse of memory,

Into cold chemistry classrooms,

Where oily refurbishments float like scum,

Atop a weary Victorian base.

Where we became stowaways,

Forming covalent bonds;

Exchanging tales of woe,

And chocolate covered raisins.

Expelling academic darkness,

In the hue of teenage hearts.

Seasons matured,

As did we.

Blown adrift by gusts of time,

Soft cheeks of eighteen,

Weathered by twenty-five.

But, 

Still I smile,

When a naive stranger wears your name,

It reminds me of a softness preserved,

Deep within my soul.

The back gate I left on the latch,

In case you wanted to come home.

-Rob Padfield