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It’s gone dark again, this red sky. My wrists are heavy. Rainwater has mixed with colours and at some point transferred to the walls. They are telling their story with twisted faces, inhaling Nag Champa and the life of glow in the dark stars. I can hear bird song. I have a soundtrack. I have not slept in two days. The birds have done it for me and this is their switching signal. Do you know what I wanted? I am standing in wildfires. I don’t know, I don’t remember.
This is only a small dip, I won’t plummet.
Words are f****** unnecessary. It’s five in the morning and you are still crying out. When was the last time we held a conversation? I can feel your shadow over mine. Where are you? You have wandered off into the warmth. There is an alarm going off to remind me that I must remain. Here. Awake. Living.
I will go swimming later, I have a one-way train ticket. Use in four hours. Five hours and the waves will take me away. How many cans of cidre can I get through and remain standing until then, how many, how many, how many? I will go against the clock face and I will root elsewhere. I will fill my stomach with this until it empties. Soundtrack switches. Soundtrack starts. Soundtrack replays. I can make it to 60 hours. I can last longer.
I can’t find my shoes.
I am looking at a computer screen through a haze of rainbows and my brain is working hard to tell me that perhaps the sun is rising. There is paint on my hands and the mirror shows that I have coloured my face in waking tones. Do you know what you have lost?
You have stopped shouting and resolved to sitting in dark corners, sending your mind into dreams. I watch them play behind your eyelids through one more hour. You always did talk in your sleep. Just another person trying to convince me that you are convinced. I am afraid I cannot make this clearer. I have torn the words from my lips, cupped in hand and spread through air. They lie, stagnant, at your curling toes. Intentions, pure.
It is time for me to leave—
You.
