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Just like the river, I’ve been running. Swift and soft like a humming bird’s wings, flying without stopping, flowing like there’s nothing else I’m meant to do with these streams of mine. The current is high, throwing me against the wind, whirling me around like a Ferris wheel with no attendant to stop these gears from turning. In my mind, late at night, I run like rum from an alcoholic’s bottle. I run like a river through the jungle, wild and undammed like the wilderness that surrounds me.

I’ve travelled far and through the driest of lands that threatened to ruin me, leaving me thirsty and wanting for more than just waters. I’ve been running for miles that stretch out like millions of decaying bodies and meters of broken bone and empty blood vessels laid over cracking soil. And still I run. Without stopping. Under the hottest of suns and over the most jagged rocks that reach up and scar the bottom of my belly. But I do not curse or bare my teeth in anger. Instead I work slow, with love and with purpose, smoothing their rough surfaces down to glass and continue running. Beneath an endless sky that reaches down and touches its face to mine, those sparkling eyes blinking in the depth of me.

I’ve swallowed valleys and coughed up mountains. I’ve split myself into a hundred pieces and touched the entire world at once, knowing that one day I’ll find all of me again. One day soon, I’ll dive into me again and float without sinking. 

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I wanted you without knowing you were not for the seeking, not for the needing or pleading cries of be mine. You were not for the loving. Not wholly. The spaciness of you was too big for my heart, too heavy for my soul, not even my shoulders could carry the weight of you. Not fully.

If only you were more for the cutting, I’d chop the muchness of you into more manageable pieces; I’d slash and burn the difficulty of you. But knives don’t frighten you do they, not even diamond tipped tears could scratch the pristine, pretty-coloured gleaminess of you. Like mercury, you were always the wielder of the sword. Knight shining and me, enamoured of you. You impenetrable thing. You unforgettable, tall tale, fable of a thing. Unthinkable, unsinkable thing.

You. 

Dear Georgia,

Memories come more easily than air, but I rather breathe you than oxygen. I rather suffocate on your scent, even when I’ve forgotten what you smell like. And tonight, moonlight comes to mind as I force to inhale, punctured lungs spilling lunar eclipses across my pillow. You often come to me just before the day cracks like a stepped on mirror, shattered light scattering across the sky as thoughts of you spark and stutter through my mind like a broke down car rolling along the highway. Passed the old lady who sold us coconut ice pops for dollar-fifty and the palm tree that overlooked our first kiss that night after confirmation class. I repeat you like a psalm laid over piano keys and fingers that reach out for a touch until I remember you’re not really there.

But missing, missing doesn’t quite suffice. It’s too small a thought to swallow all this feeling, these waves that crash over me like an ocean of heat, the way those molten days of summer used to drip like syrup and coat our bodies, naked and breathless, as we lay piled on top of each other in the haze of your tiny room. I wanted to squeeze you open like a guinep, watch you burst and blossom, and eat you whole, anything to know if you were just as sweet on the inside. I miss you more than missing can describe and this lack of you acts as a time machine with no instruction, as sporadic and untimely as my dreams. If I could, I would dial the clocks back to the moment I first heard you laugh, bottle the sounds and drink you like happiness. Drunk on your smile, artificial high until I kiss you again, taste your lips again.

It’s not enough but missing’s all I’ve got. That and ‘I love you.’

The sun never sets in this city

Light clings to the horizon like a jealous King gripping his crown as he banishes the moon. The stars are all fallen knights, imprisoned by concrete walls and street lamps cocooned in expired posters and stale graffiti. There are no sparkling sapphire skies here, no constellations to connect the images of childhood dreams birthed on islands, only a dull orange haze hanging low in the distance and a lot of people who never look up because there’s nothing to see. It is a place where new faces, like yours, go as unnoticed as misplaced stars.