Consummatum Est

It is finished. My murderer crosses her hands over her chest and falls backwards into my arms. I dip her down beneath the surface of me, under my waters in an endless baptism. We are spent.

My desk is mulch, a year’s worth of toast crusts and furry cups, ashtrays and dandruff, impotent ink pens and notes-to-self, empty baggies and Lucozade bottles, unfilled-in forms and fermented fruit and teetering pagodas of splay-spined books.

I should arm myself with bin-bags and Mr Muscle and clean it all away. I should use the special nozzle on the vacuum cleaner and get into all the nooks and crannies, suck away the ash and the dust, the shed skin and the spilled words. I should scrub and swab and straighten and polish and make it all spick-and-span.

Instead I am going to take to my bed with wine and weed and bonbons and poetry and I’m not getting up until Monday.