three weeks

1.
20th March
Out there is a thick gash of dark glowing green, laid out under the black curve of the sky. On the pier, men stand with fishing rods and buckets and swap slow stories with sudden endings. Above our heads, the bugs spin and whiz, collecting gleam from the floodlights which spill across the fields of white sand - "sort of like it's a whole constellation shooting out of control" you say (or something like that; my memory only allows paraphrases).
We arrange ourselves to stop grains from getting in our hair, on our scalps.

The kissing is quiet, and beautiful, and broken with words.


2.
7th April
That was three weeks ago, almost.
So I let myself abandon my defences and my fear and reservations and I let myself descend, again, into the weeks of soft air and tensely packed hearts. Nights smell like vanilla and tomorrow is always looming, and so we lie there, tucked close, refusing to turn over to the dawn. The cats are leaping at the door. There is wind in the eucalypts. There is anxiety, yes, but there is also relief inside of us, and it leaks out of our eyes, owl eyes, squirrel eyes, and wraps itself around our bodies, glowly warmly, set firmly in stone. The windy mornings become bright afternoons which become nights trapped and cold and still. I hold your hair, soft and thin, grasp your tiny shoulders, feel your breath. The world is calm. Your voice is small and the leaves are blowing and the candle flicks and the cats are gone. There is a language of lost words seeking refuge from stunned hearts. Then it's dark and silent, and for now, at least, you and I are here.


3.
12th April
When you go there is a dull clash inside of me like the sound of a 40 gallon drum being dropped a kilometre or so away. This is everything familiar and I'm imagining as though its lines I've been delivering in scenes I've been playing for years, to different crowds. But then we're out on stage and the whole thing seems strange and I can't pick why but then I realise its a different set altogether, a different stage, and now you're uttering different lines and I start to panic; this wasn't meant to go like this. You look up, out of the top of your eyes, and you speak, and I realise, fully. This is completely something else.

And I wasn't expecting water.

When you go I really stand there a few moments waiting for you to come back. Its only moments, but in that time I really believe that it will happen. I have never stood there like that before.

When you go, I walk outside and the cold autumn air echoes around the airport carpark. The air is vibrating more and more and it pops into a vacuum, a silent emptiness. Inside the car I am finding it hard to breathe.

Come back one day soon, please Katie, to dance above this grass.