train dreams

you call to tell me you're waiting at the front door. I've been cooking and cleaning and trying not to think too much. on the porch you greet me with a haircut, the difference I can't quite appreciate as much as the hug in the dark. the candles in the kitchen fill the gaps. it's nice to see you smile again.

in my room we play your music and laugh into the way we were again. I release my relief into your embrace. the rhythm returns and maybe we both remember why we started to begin with. I didn't think I'd see you again. you say you didn't want to leave things vacant. I missed you and you missed me too. and so we are where we are, willing each other a little closer with questions and answers and the warmth that comes with holding onto something. our towels hang side by side on the rail above the blinds.

we both have train dreams, like the title of the movie that last made a stranger cry. on his way out of the house he told me I had to watch the film, that it felt like watching poetry. I dream of losing you on trains / in transit, finding you on the platform making the conductors laugh. they are sad to see you go when we board the right train to wherever we are going. track works shoot us all over the city. in the afternoon sun we're nearly caught coming undone through the windows. at the end of the line I spy post with our names through the door before waking up. you dream of the long journey home on a train that never seems to end.

in the morning you stretch on the floor, telling me about your dream and plans for your adventure. before greeting the day you sing me a song about sending your heart to the moon. you kneel with my guitar and I am frozen on my pillow. hope lines the day with the sound of your voice. I look at you in the dark / when we glow / on the floor with your song and my guitar. I think that when you leave I will write something beautiful about this. 

primavera

winter's ending spawns another spring and we wake to face September again. blossoms start to bleed a little earlier here in anticipation. I pass them on the ride to school wishing they would slow down / be a little more patient. they are beautiful but fleeting and I want them to last. back home our weeping tree stirs to life for less than a week, blossoming a soft pink that rains onto the unkempt flowerbed at its feet. my parents know I think of it and send a photo every year. I wish that time would fertilise a little slower.

dining outside at the laksa house on Lygon. the breeze is soft and mild. waiting for my friend's return from the bathroom I listen to a stranger lecturing a captive first date audience on climate change. I learn that winter will soon be a thing of the past. collectively we can't keep up with the planet or our own destruction. 'we'll be okay ... but winter is gone.' in my bowl I carve my spoon through the dregs of the soup.

learning how to swim apart

so we beat on

carved in fire

in water

in anything but stone

pixelated feelings blurred or clear as your voice in the dark

fluorescent or a little less wild 

however you like

the dog from the song waiting with the bird

under the moon

wanting only to be wanted

sitting in your car

you read the new commandments from the mountain in a voice that isn't yours

I say amen

biting my tongue on a prayer willing you home

using other words

a little different from the start

closing windows

as you wish

dimming colours as needed

being what I am

for now:

translucent shell of dreams

head and heart

learning how to swim apart.

clay or chemical reactions

I wait for the right words. they'll come only in time to commiserate the end of days. in the meantime you are busy, working with your fish and doing other things. it's my turn but I don't know what to do. I waste time wondering what you might be thinking. though you're not waiting for the right words to find me too I don't want to be a stranger.

you coloured your hair for the first time in years. I remind myself at every pit that grows in my chest at the sight of your natural colour on a stranger. the orange is soft and gentle. you want it to be darker but you've also said you're not feeling keen on anything right now. I told you it looks beautiful. you probably squeezed my hand or shrugged me off into a smile.

rereading the pages I breathe into the fact that I meant everything I said. I told you this once. we had been glowing and lost in each other in your room. the light was soft and you were warm and all around me. we smiled into each other's eyes, willing the glow to keep us safe a little longer. I could have drowned there happily, your eyes opening windows and blinds, letting light into rooms I'd left locked forever. you are beautiful and in your eyes I don't need to wonder what you think. I thank you and tell you I've meant everything I said. you thank me and say the same in return. I believe you without reason to believe anything else.

thinking in ink I try to map what might be going on, not wanting to push you any closer to the sink to wash your hands and leave. I wonder how alone I am in second-guessing. you told me you wanted to check that nothing had changed. the essence of the question and the way it sounds in your mouth grates against the way we've been since the beginning. I think about the way we glow and laugh and sing, the way we've danced and held and grown to know each other. this has changed. we were strangers not too long ago. do you know too many of my colours now? I remember everything is fluid and we are little more than clay or chemical reactions I don't understand.

I've kept the mirror in my room since your last visit. we lay it up against the bed to dress and paint our faces for the aliens. I took a photo of you colouring yours. it hangs in a library of others I want you to see. evidence of memories that shouldn't exist in a world that moves so quick, too quick to care for kissing in the pantry or glowing through the playground in the dark. I contemplate leaving us where we are, preserving the gold in the vault. do I let you run like water? is it better to speak or keep you safe in memory? what do you want me to do?

a little much

under the shower head I let the water drown my face. I want to exorcise the way I feel, to thaw and disappear into the drain. but the shape I take won't change. there is no substitute for crying. I let the water hold me knowing it is futile as any other feeling. this warm embrace will end with just the turning of a tap. at least I hold the handle.

in the mirror I shave my face as though it matters. too many mornings without laughing. a little too much care and second guessing. I listen to a song that makes me feel a little less alone. I wanted to play it for you last night when we sat at the piano. the foyer was all but empty, everyone else patient enough to stand and smile through all the speeches in the gallery. we improvise something new, doing our best to play in harmony. you played as a child and I just don't want to get in the way. someone takes a photo. your hair looks redder from behind.

I didn't play you the song. I couldn't remember the chords, though I couldn't forget the feeling if I tried. for it to underscore your company doesn't feel quite right. in the car you change gears. I do my best to navigate and keep up with your appearances. the whiplash is a little jarring and in the moment I struggle. words dwarf and discredit. you use yours carefully and I should thank you, though I can't tell which was real: the way we were or this respectful distant language. is this display or have we just been playing dress-ups? a little much for you for now.

in bed I melt into the words and sounds of other songs that know me. I feel a fool for letting you do the same. it felt right in the moment. we saw each other and you didn't run. tonight the blanket isn't warm or big enough to cover the clown. you've read his poetry and heard his voice. tonight he wishes you hadn't. but a feeling is as futile as the water.

silicon

disconnected from the feeling

fear of being

living through my dreams

alone

meet me in the underpass

rain on the roof at night

tying up your shoes

smooth as silicon

I’d like to sleep forever

your afterglow

into tomorrow

please

grey gardens

escaping my own company I watch a movie in the end room with my housemate. it's a documentary she's been wanting to watch for a while. an elderly woman and her middle-aged daughter spend their days arguing and commiserating the past over old photos / relics / lazy snacking / dancing and singing about death in the dark damp rooms of an all but derelict estate in Long Island. over the course of maybe a decade we watch them spiral further into their own nostalgic disillusions, never leaving the mansion they call home. the house clutters further into disrepair with each passing season.

the daughter is first cousin to first lady of a since assassinated president. she wears a different coloured outfit every day. no matter what she's wearing her hair remains completely covered, even in her bathing suit. we can't quite tell if this is modesty or vanity. she often talks about wanting to leave the estate, to find her own life and spread her wings into the world. there are dreams of a life in the city, in New York, where she can be herself on her own terms, away from her mother, away from the black hole that is their home and the history she can't quite seem to escape. her mother finds this funny. she says her daughter will never leave and she never does.

she dances for the camera: sometimes giddy and free as a child without care or agenda, otherwise serious and grave, cursed by something haunted lingering beneath her gaze. some kind of sadness wants to rupture from her eyes, as though the dance is not enough to exorcise the dark. she tells us she only cares about singing, dancing, and the Catholic Church. I think about my mother and her mother. I wonder if they'll dance and sing together in another life.