And so I return,

To do the thing I set out to do,

To tell tales of rotten love and lust,

To muse upon debauchery.

The golden lamplight flickers,

She brushes a tear from her eye and coughs.

She lights a cigarette,

Fakes indifference,

And says, “It matters not,

It matters not at all.”

Too true,

It makes no difference;

The curtsy as he walks away,

The letter burning in the hearth,

The days lost, trying to make him care,

The windswept walks across the moor,

It matters not at all, she says,

It matters not at all.

And so I return,

To write this all down,

Someone must,

In this age of indifferent scrolling,

Romance dead,

Or sprawled out in the hall,

Drunk and begging,

In a tattered ball gown,

So replete at the start,

Someone stitched and payed for that.

Now everything is lost,

Everything is lost

As she walks the hall,

And if the sun won’t rise tomorrow,

And everything is lost,

It matters not,

It matters not at all.

2019