izzy

it’s in the breath it took to say ‘goodbye’
or the sliding shy eyes and quivering hands
of the first hello
the space between the bed and the wall
or the crack of it coming undone when I rolled over
in the dead of a sweltering night
now there is a festa raging on your street
half-remembered jokes and habits
blending in with the cushions,
you could be forgiven for thinking I never left.

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sarah

Five non-essential admissions:

1. I am frightened of going blind. Sometimes I cross my eyes and try to do day-to-day tasks like that as a way of testing how I would respond to sudden double vision. When I have panic attacks, it feels like my vision is tunneling. I get scared when I’m driving along freeways that my eyes will stop working and I’ll crash.

2. Sometimes when I get premenstrual, I get so deeply, viscerally angry at tiny things that I want to pick fights with strangers so I can punch them as hard as I can. I once kicked a rubbish bin outside the VCA until I dented it and people looked at me like I’d gone crazy. I tried Googling whether increased testosterone could be part of PMS but couldn’t find a definitive answer. I wonder whether this is what it feels like to be a man.

3. If I knew I was dying, I would take heroin, sleep with strangers and probably commit suicide (not necessarily in that order). I don’t understand people who say ‘Don’t be morbid.’ I think that thinking about death all the time is totally sensible. I mean, shit. It’s going to happen. Might as well be prepared.

4. I am more attracted to men with long fingers and I wonder whether it’s because I equate this with penis size. This has, in my experience, been a reasonably accurate indicator.

5. I pray for safety on every plane I get on, not because I believe in God, but because I’m worried that the one time I don’t do it will be the one time the plane goes down. I am more scared of mid-air turbulence than taking off and landing, even though the vast majority of crashes happen during those times. I still think that flying into a sunrise is the most beautiful thing you can do while sitting down.

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