March 29th, 2015 - Amelia Hopkins

I’m dreaming that I’m awake.

I’m sitting with you, in the kitchen

The soft sun filtering through the window

Landing perfectly on your left side.

I’m smiling at you, trying to reconcile

How a man so perfect in every way

Believes in something so innately

Flawed.

Not even a small part of you wonders?

You say

I tell you that if I do,

I only think of Him to be a bit like my dad

Mostly absent,

Occasionally taking an interest,

Vaguely disappointed in me and my choices.

You laugh and point out

That I don’t like driving down Mare Street,

Because of what happened that time

Even though it means I end up taking the longer route

You remind me that my sister doesn’t step on cracks in the pavement,

If she can help it.

But that’s a far cry, I argue

From parting seas and turning water into wine.

Maybe, you say with that smile,

But maybe not

And you rise from your chair

To plant a soft kiss on my furrowed brow.

Now, I open my eyes and I’m alone

Not in the kitchen, sitting with you

And I wonder

What I would believe

Or not believe

If it meant I could see you,

Even one more time, again.

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Amelia is a writer and psychotherapist based in London. She is interested in the ways in which the internal world meets the external one, particularly in relation to identity and ethnic and gendered personhood. Her work appears in the SOAS Law Journal, A Sufferers Digest, The Genre Society and others.

You can see what her and her dog are up to on instagram: amelia.numa