izzy

This morning, I exploded. I didn’t quite know what to do about it, so I just stood there and waited for it to pass. I watched the faces of my flatmates contort in horror and confusion as I expanded in a rush of gold flecks. From my exploded state, I could taste the weak sunlight in the air and feel the weight of dust particles resting on the flecks that were me. I could see a 360 degree view of the room, and I could feel every corner and every millimetre of other matter that was around us. I watched as my flatmates’ faces realigned back to their normal state, no longer rubbery with awe, as I contracted back into a person before them. They shook their heads and pushed the plunger down into the coffee or flipped the egg or poured the milk like nothing even happened anyway.

*

sarah

That night when I walked you home along the endless tarmac through the hot dark hours
A walk that became cheap wine and a taxi ride and tumbling out at the edge of the ocean
Holding a holy communion for the sand and the stars in barefoot reverence
Grazing the hairs of our arms together whose atoms never quite connected
And feeling the drunken sizzle of impossible electricity between two sprawling bodies
Your long toes kicking out an ampitheatre for a foot-acted staging of Shakespeare’s best
Our laughing mouths conjuring old words as we sat together on an old, old world
The hours spinning by, unhinged, til the roar of an engine sent us skittering up the beach
Returning to find the dunes recarpeted with soft white silk, finer than stardust, and cold
Dancing madly in the new-mown sandy snow, pressing our footprints in as proof
I span and span until I toppled over and you folded up and laughed until you cried
The sun rose, and with it the 5 am surf lifesavers, and we all blinked in the dawn.
As I put you to bed in the wan morning light, you pressed your head to my chest
And murmured at my hammering pulse. I breathed in your sweet smell,
Felt my heart swelling fit to burst, my chest awash with bugle calls
I stole a kiss from your furrowed brow and handed you over to the soft arms of sleep

*