Guillotine.

We are standing the spare room, the room that used to be ours before we moved to a better one when teh Damn Emos flew the coop.

A room that is essentially now a dressing room/clothes drying/don’t know where to put this shit but it is too good to put in the garage with all the other crap room.

MPS is standing in the doorway eating a bowl of cereal, watching me while I stare at the clothes on the airer trying to slow my thoughts.

Today he has an interview, and the applications for the permanent job he has been contracting for are due this afternoon.

‘I get it now.  You are scared because something good might happen.  You are waiting for…’

‘The axe to fall’ I reply.  I haven’t been able to breathe properly for days and those 4 words encompass all the feelings, the horrible horrible fucked up dreams, that have been smothering me.

‘I was going to say ‘other shoe to drop’.  Lets go with that’

But it is a axe.

A guillotine.

A shiny cut throat blade hovering over my head.

My Pavlovian response, drooling as the bells of doom ring in my head.

The rush of adrenaline, my constant companion.

Trying not to pin all my hopes and all of my happiness on the decisions that are out of my control.

Wanting just one motherfucking thing to go our way.

We have been here before, so many times.

So many, many fucking times.

Sometimes, not even noticing the axe.

Sometimes, it is held by someone I love.

Sometimes, trying desperately to pretend it isn’t there.

But it is always there, why would it be any different now?

I plan and dream and smile.

And try to believe that this time will be different.  That it is our turn for something great.

Or even just mundanely normal.

To be just like we were, before it all went to shit.

So I wait, my mind slowly disconnecting, preparing to watch from those dizzying heights of hope as the axe falls

and I crumple to the ground.

Defeated once more.