learning how to swim apart

so we beat on

carved in fire

water

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.

recharge and survival

the doctor asks me what I want to talk about. I ask if she can remember what was worrying me last time. she takes notes so she can and I can pick up what I want to. we had started to talk about my habits and where they came from. no luck finding any answers yet. today I want to ask for help. dread dooms the day; a lighter to a gas tank. empty time and space is only room for fire to fester. I build a funeral pyre of dreams from my own misinterpretations. nightmares run on tap and scare me into corners in the dark. I scream at myself in silence.

she tells me to list how I knew I was anxious. I watch her write along on the whiteboard on my screen: inability to focus, shaking, tightness (in the arms, the jaw, the chest), headache, the pit in my stomach, inability to sit comfortably, feeling hot, restricted breathing, catastrophising silence. there are no surprises here. from offscreen she presents a sculpture of the brain, which she breaks in half to show the plastic layers in their artificial colours. the changes I've mentioned all make sense to her and she has an explanation.

a lesson in biology: anxiety is charged by the amygdala, which only wants me to survive. to do so all eleven systems in my body change at once. according to design my body is doing what it is meant to. on the whiteboard she draws a scale, explaining that every response I make exists on the spectrum between recharge and survival:

0 calm

1 aware

2 present

3 performance

4 the zone

5 the edge

6 change

7 wobbly

8 holding on

9 panic

10 survival

too often the brain rushes to the past to predict the present. in the rush it struggles to reach the logic that protects us in less dire situations. control is an illusion. in uncertainty stakes heighten and my conscious self is lost to the amygdala. according to the whiteboard autopilot will not hear sense. the rib cage tightens to protect my vital organs. muscles tense for action. the body is ready to run from the beast.

the doctor reminds me that anxiety lives in the gut. she ties it all back to me and my habits. we can only digest when we feel calm. survival mode changes every system in the hopes of giving every chance to survive the given threat. digestion takes a lot of energy. anxiety asks us to prioritise. if I don't refuel, the body starts to feel as though it's under threat. anxiety continues to simmer. but I can reclaim the respiratory system with deep breaths. keep them slow and long. climb back to yourself gently. anxiety keeps us alive. oxygen keeps us living. I think about the end and I think about you. I wish they taught us this at school.

pink in the morning

but morning comes to church

the sounds of choir hymns

over traffic

under you

I study your face in the light through the blind

we make dreams under stars but I want to see you in the sun

are we the end of winter?

breath that feels a little warmer

the first blossoms start to bleed from trees crying over asphalt

pink in the morning

I pass them on the ride to school

I hope you see them too.