Awful

Awful—
the sky cracks open like a stale biscuit,
its grey‑blue hue bleeding into the pavement,
while a distant lorry groans, its exhaust
curling like cold tea left too long in the pot.

In the market stall, the apples sit—
spotted, bruised, their flesh a sigh of rot,
and the shopkeeper’s smile is as thin
as the crust on a forgotten scone.

Children’s laughter turns to a hollow echo,
bouncing off the brickwork of the council flats,
where the heating rattles like a tin kettle
and the wallpaper peels in reluctant strips.

Even the tea, steeped too long, turns bitter,
a reminder that some moments linger—
awful not in roar, but in the quiet
drip of a leaky tap, the weight of a grey day.