itselliegasp

I saw a young couple walking past the IGA today. They were holding hands, looking at each other and laughing, and probably around the age we would’ve been. I don’t think the nuts and bolts on the wall beside the station are there anymore. Or are they? I don’t notice. I haven’t in a while. The walls of the underpasses are unfamiliar to me now, because I never catch the train. I’m never looking down the platform for your outline. I only ever sit in the back of Ubers now. The sharp feeling of dread in my gut that I used to feel when looking down Mason St has started to blunt. Because even though it’s been that way for a while, I’m only just starting to get used to it. That you’re no longer there, visiting home. You’re not allowed. Your sisters have moved out. Even your mum might have left, I’m not sure. I wouldn’t blame her for leaving, when ghosts of you still walk in her hallways, sit on her deck chairs outside, ash in her ashtray, lie on the floor in front of her couch. Newport

I love you, and I hate the city Dragonflies chase each other above the rippling water, Golden brown, but clear And it glistens where the sun catches My eyes trace the strokes of bark on tall trees Obelisks of nature, standing stark against the background of rolling Victorian hills If I close my eyes, I hear the tapping of tin as you rustle through your tacklebox And feel the wind brush my hair gently against my face I love you, and I hate the city

last night, you were in my dream again and by some lunatic stretch of the imagination, i've convinced myself you were really there that what you said to me in the scape of my midnight fairytale was real - is my desperation for your attention obvious yet - "it's not cheating, it's taking an opportunity" - your words, in the early evening of my dream last night still haunt me like the ghosts of people i once knew telling me to let myself run free, let myself scream into the night, let my blood boil telling me to abandon everything i have ever known and felt responsibility for telling me to live life according to spontaneity and temptation telling me to slice open old wounds and let my body bleed dry telling me to let all the fluids, thoughts, feelings, atoms of my being flow and lean over and kiss you when you said those words my mind blanked, and breath baited, i locked my gaze onto yours and your eyes told me that i know this is real just the same as you do and there is

hearing the wind wail past my house used to scare me. i welcome it now like the greeting of an old friend. no longer haunting, just the siren song of a sad spirit, come to lift it's head and say hello when the weather cools.

My mother poured me a drink tonight. A weak one - gin and tonic, with bruised mint from the garden and a perfectly sliced wedge of lime. I said no twice before I asked for one, “please”. I wanted to stay away from drinking, and while I said outwardly that it was because I wanted to avoid sinking into the clutch of alcohol, I also felt a tiny amount of smug pride at the inner strength it represented and didn’t want to sacrifice it. Pride is the reason for all my self-discipline these days. My senses were tingling as I raised the glass up to my lips, hovering for a moment as the scent of the gin and mint tantalised me. I took the first sip and felt the familiar sharpness hit the back of my throat. Amazing, how the tension in my shoulders dropped and I felt an audible “mmm” escape me. It's not even that I could identify the taste itself as good, per se - but it felt like someone was oiling my joints as the fire of the alcohol crept through my body. “I feel so adult,” I remarked to my

I never write when I’m happy. Your slippers are sitting at the sliding door to the balcony, and I feel a little sick just noticing them there. Your old gym shoes, too, and I notice with mild frustration that I’ve accidentally packed one of your old band tees in my bag as well. It’s the same old pattern of noticing all the ways you stand out in my day-to-day, so blindingly obvious, painfully present where you once just wove your way in so comfortably, so unnoticeably. I wonder if you’re flipping through your YouTube homepage and seeing recommendations based on what I like to watch but you don’t, making you think of me. I wonder if you see my blue sparkly pen that I forgot on your desk, so out of place with that dark wood and plain, minimalist office space of yours. I wonder if you keep seeing me in all the ways I keep seeing you. It doesn’t feel like we’re breaking up but I think we are. As I get older, I’m noticing there’s less of that rhetoric of “if only it happened

i wonder if you know i'm hurting the way i'm hurting people never really give up on people, we just tell ourselves we do to get by i know you're telling yourself that i don't give a fuck about you anymore that i've cut myself off from feeling anything for you but total and utter disgust tell yourself what you need to, in order to get by i wonder if one day you can confront deep down, what you know to be the honest truth - that i'm sitting here with a court order in one hand and a pile of miserable memories in the other, listening to old ballads i once mourned you over, reliving the mourning again and again and again tears soak my face like they were always here, like they have always meant to be here, like this is where they naturally belong when it comes to grieving you, i am nothing but an addict my voice is weak in my chest, like a baby bird on the brink of it's premature, untimely death and it's still crying out for you, but in what way - i don't know anymore tell

i got the news of your arrest today i panicked on the phone to the detective, trying to remember the right questions to ask but mostly fought my racing thoughts, thoughts that dared to spear through my paper-thin composure at any given moment it doesn't feel right to write anymore but i'm trying it anyway because for some reason i've put on our old songs today, and i'm reading all the prose i wrote for you back when my heart was a little too young and fresh and trusting it's like i'm celebrating the news, or really, mourning you, as i lose you in a brand new way - how many times can you lose the same person? and i'm listening to this one song i remember listening to when i ran away from home and met you by the water, cold wind rushing over the waves and forcing the tendrils of my hair into a wild dance about my head i remember listening to it, eyes meeting yours 20 metres away and as we walked, we wouldn't dare take our eyes off one another, trapped in that slice of