the rain is falling on the windows we bashed through the roof

it’s strange, the way you move into a house

because you want to improve it.

You want to buy less than best so you can do it

put your stamp on it.

Only, I forgot to go to the post office

and here I am,

six years later,

with a leak in one corner

spreading like a bad marble paint effect

down my white walls.

I have enjoyed those white walls,

fresh and clean,

sunshine bleaching out all the trauma from before.

I didn’t know it was trauma,

but I knew our walls weren’t white.

I’d seen an article about a Vogue writer,

her house was white,

all different shades,

but all white.

She said it was easy.

You only had to do minimum touch ups.

She mainly bought normal fluffy dog white.

It stayed with me.

Not the dog,

the idea.

Of a white, truthful house

It still does.

I love colour,

but I want to make it, not absorb it.

Some I have white walls in my living room.

Except for the gold one.

Did I mention. My gold wall,

sadly not leaf.

No?

It’s acrylic paint.

I love it.

My boys

hate it.

I don’t care.

The mere fact this argument and these choices are real

is the point,

is the prize,

is the brightest

most brilliant.

The shade should be called independence

‘Does what it says on the tin’