Poem of the Week : Remote

Remote

It’s Friday night
and we’re all alone,
a perfect time to 😉
but he
keeps checking his phone,
more concerned
with other people’s updates
than with his own bird,
his own home.

He looks up.
Babe, what’s up?
I bite my tongue,
preventing all the things
I want to say to him,
my pals’ voices
ringing in my head:
Why d’you even stay wi’ him?

We like different pizza,
he likes olives
and I prefer jalapenos,
so we usually go half-and-half;
that’s just how it goes.

He’ll tan six beers,
then fall asleep
on the couch.
I’ll drink more wine
than I should
and watch the candles
burn out.

Squashed together,
legs entwined,
yet we’ve never felt so far apart.

There we go;
another episode of Narcos
automatically starts.
I put my pizza down.
I’m not hungry any more.
I can’t be arsed watching this again;
we’ve seen this one before.

Long
lusty
weekends
spent in bed
feel so long ago
it’s like they happened
to somebody else.

We’ve been together
since we were fourteen,
so it kind of hurts me
to know
that he’d rather
scroll down a screen
than stroke the place
in between
my thighs,
and our flat
that’s too wee for us anyway
gets smaller with every lie.

Lies like
I’m fine,
I’ve only had one glass of wine,
I’m too tired,
I left,
I wasn’t fired,
she’s just a friend,
this isn’t the end.

But it is.
I’m thinking about
calling time
on this swamp
of stagnant apathy.
How long can you coexist
with someone so unhappily
before you can officially say
we’ve failed?

Before you admit
it’s gone stale
or one of you bails?
We used to be
two peas in a pod,
practically joined at the hip.
Is this just a bump in the road?
A glitch?
A dip?

I was excited to see him
every single day.
Now I look forward
to the nights he chooses
to work late.

I look to him desperately
for a sign,
a sign that says
he will always be mine.

He notices me staring,
leans in and smiles
for the millionth time.

Babe, can you pass the remote?
The game’s on at nine.

Cat Hepburn is an award-winning Scottish scriptwriter, educator and spoken word artist. Cat is one half of the poetry house party, Sonnet Youth, and her debut poetry collection, Dating & Other Hobbies was published  in 2021 by Burning Eye Books.