Darling

It’s a south London thing now; and I am feeling so delicate, so fragile - wondering if you will go all in this time. (It is your style, to be honest.)

These days, if I ask you to close your eyes will you trust me?

 

Will your feet move forward, trailing my steps; not fast, but steadfast still?

 

Things have changed since that winter night when you forced me to my knees amongst crystalised icicles; my bag sliding across the mirrored surface as I tried to get across it. After all this time I still remember waking up with a start in the middle of the night - my heart in my throat, fumbling for my phone, seeing her image and knowing that everything had been altered.

 

You walked away regardless, or perhaps because and you took my streets with you; making me a stranger in my own city, relentlessly searching in the ruins for what had been lost.

 

Will you face what you destroyed, despite the world being on fire and the stars aligning?

 

Room 147

The waiter fusses around us – your eyes are on me as I try to eat my melon without shaking. A profound moment, but so unexpected. I have known you for 30 minutes, yet I watch as a lifetime passes in-between the seconds. We’re in a posh hotel somewhere near Cologne and everything has changed.

 

I watch you move towards the bar; your step quick and lithe - your white shirt glimmering in the dim evening light. I have time to wonder at the swiftness of it all. I have time to ponder your piercing blue eyes before you are back; gin and tonic in hand and I lose myself in the familiar taste - cheeks flushed, lips rosy. As you lean back in your chair my head swirls with your movements.

 

Later, walking through the softly lit, marbled reception area towards your room. You’re a wanderer just like me. Never settling, always moving on. But even wanderers need some sort of stability and you’re not going to find it in me. Yet, my feet move towards you in that room, so crowded by your mind; your presence spilling out like water over all my edges and cracks.

 

You don’t touch me, instead you touch the inner corners of my mind. It’s like you know that you have to go there first to keep me, just like I do.

 

Our words dance between us, too personal, too intimate for the setting. We are seeing clients tomorrow and I know this is not suitable, but I can’t stop, and neither can you. It’s like we are trapped in an unexpected dream and neither one of us can decipher if it is a good one yet. Will this look different in hindsight? When you leave, will these memories linger?

 

The morning after is bleak. I am dressed to a tee and last night rests heavy on both of us – change can do just that. Your face is pale, your features serious and hard-set. I remind myself we were just playing pretend, but I convince no one. We start moving towards your BMW, my bag uncomfortably bouncing between us. Your body is too close to me once we sit down, and I feel like the air is being pushed out of my lungs as I try to make conversation, ensuring that we don’t acknowledge just how deep the impact of last night was. Then you turn to look at me and I feel naked and defenceless under your gaze.

 

As we start to move forward, I realise there is no going back this time.

Phoenix

It’s the same city as before, but something has been altered beyond recognition. The change is relentless, and she can’t move across it, the boundaries so severe that they have formed black scars in the asphalt and as she walks; she has to tread carefully to not trip over the sharp edges. She thinks of the champagne bottle at home; she bought it as a celebration of something new and improved but the lights have gone out and there is little joy in this place anymore. These are the streets where her heart broke so many moons ago in a chilly, cold winter night. It’s summer now but she still shivers.

 

The man with the golden spurs stands at the corner. She can see his outline in the distance, and she knows he takes no prisoners. He shines with a golden glow and sparkles shoot out from his pointed cowboy boots. He stands there, like so many times before but his eyes, green, with a hint of gold, are softer as she approaches.

 

“Do you want me to save you?”, he says almost teasingly.

 

They stand in silence as she ponders her response. The ground begins to move again, cracking beneath her feet – widening the distance between them into an ever-expanding crater. The noise in its wake, just a faint glimmer at first, growing into a deafening roar.

 

“A penny for your thoughts”, he yells across the rumbling void as the swaying ground keeps moving her further away from him - faster and faster it goes, and her head is spinning with the speed. Her heart beats violently; she tries to say something, anything, but her voice is lost in the moment and even though the will is there no sound comes out.

 

He is just a dot against the horizon now, gleaming, and shiny still but faint. She watches his outline trying to move away from the edge but the asphalt has a mind of its own and bit by bit it moves in on him, eating away at the ledge he is standing on. She can sense his panic rather than see it as his foothold finally crumbles in a cloud of dust, golden spurs and sparkles disappearing in a sea of light. 

 

She is alone as the ground stops shaking – the silence surprising after so much noise, and just like that it is over. Just like that the world is a different place and as the asphalt slowly starts to merge again, she gently touches her left cheek (to make sure she is still there); her heartbeat still, her gaze unclouded - then she turns her back to what was and walks away.