Bow Bell Tales

Your persona is unusually large and that fits the bill. However, he lingers. I loved him when I was nine – how can anyone ever compete with that? His blond hair is unruly in a way I remember from the baseball field. Boys that gave me their hearts wrapped up in pens and razors, steel guitars echoing along the halls while I walked away. You might be different, but are you right? I am cautious…

Greenery is pushing through the open car windows; it’s everywhere, bushy, lively, sprightly, vivid. Unorganised and so totally alive. Water slowly, languidly, laps the shoreline outside these metal walls protecting my pale, delicate frame. The blueness glistens like a thousand diamonds in the rising sun and the light hits my cornea, bringing me an unquestionable now. It’s just dawn and we are…

That darkness. Forever paired with the bright lights of the city. Do you know it is yours? It’s been a while, but you linger. I see your dark hair everywhere I am not. I think about the camping trip tomorrow and yet, I wonder what you are doing. A millennial so lost in space, but in my own way I loved you. You woke me up and it changed things. That, I know you don’t know. I left you with…

It’s spiky but elegant. Those notes you give me. Endless nights riding in cabs by the Strand – moving from west to east after too much wine in Kensington. Going from glamour to cool; Shoreditch passing underneath my feet in that black cab. London forever rearranging itself outside the window. I still feel the chill of the Big Smoke; I am still part of the flow despite being far away. A…

We are on a date and when you realise he is still with me, you go a different way than usual. You talk about limitations and boundaries as though you care. Mansplaining yourself into oblivion. I keep quiet. Instead, I unapologetically go skinny dipping in your friend’s pool. You follow my body in the water, but I move away from your skin and you reluctantly let me be. You keep talking though,…

You bring our beers over and that energy field that is you moves over my body in particles of the sun. Deadly attractive, but to other people. I need a bit of darkness to move into the romantic stratosphere; everyone who knows me knows that. You talk a million miles a minute and pretty soon we are filling in each other’s sentences. Your hands move as you speak and I can’t think of a better way…

When you fetch me from the waiting room I am struck by your surface, but I decide not to let it show. Then you linger on my ear. It’s where my ailment is and you take great care to explain everything. I notice that you are not wearing any gloves and that your hands are warm. I can tell you spend a lot of time at the gym. That is okay, I do too although not lately. I have been banned from…

He has me cornered at the end of the couch. His eyes mean business and I disagree. We are not alone anymore. Your ghost surfaces without apologies. I am not ready to allow anyone else to step into your light. This is the exact setup from that winter night when life finally spun on a coin with no return. This was your moment and still is, by the looks of it. Unexpectedly, he moves towards me…

I watch you on that street corner knowing I have nowhere to go in the morning. You are annoyingly Parisian and high end, too certain of your importance. Your desire bugs me rather than entices me. It’s not really about you though, it’s about the lack of PPT and Excel (I never thought I’d say that), the lack of tech, coders and demands. Every Monday is hell. Fundamentally I am a wall. That right…

The moon peels off my silver dress and just like that I am without a stitch. It’s so sudden, I try to seek cover amongst the dunes, but it’s useless so I relent. I am surprised my body doesn’t even shiver in the chilly night air, it just adapts. A moonbeam caresses my translucent skin; it’s made of the softest of velvet. I feel the touch in every cell, as strong as any human embrace. Colouring…

We meet in the car park. Your face is the same as usual. It makes me happy; I know what lies beneath that skin, so pale from yet another November. There is a familiarity to you that reaches beyond recognition. It settles somewhere deeper, somewhere words have never quite managed to reach. You turn the key. The engine starts, and so do we. We drive, and our words spill out across your steering…

Such a pretty shadow. So young, so full of watching and ears and hands and life. Next to me – dressed in the loveliest of colours, despite everything.Still minding the Gap, at all times. You are taller, darker, broader, and everything else I am not, but still me. Through those streets of Moscow, of Dublin, of London, of Gothenburg. There is no doubt, your outline remains the same. You sell…

I try to imagine a world without you. It all turns to black ash beneath my hands. Notes in a minor key spill through me as I look at that non-existent last seen status. Is it because the world has narrowed to what is now, or is it because your unusual silence penetrates every moment? I walk down the street as my smile cracks, the surface breaking, leaving only a contorted grimace where beauty…

I see her, between those symphony notes. She is her, but also me. They told me, just after she was gone, that I was all she was waiting for. I never knew. She kept those cards too close. Between travelling to Mozart and planning for Dublin, I made sure she had all the clothes she needed and the kitchenware that would make her feel at home. She would pack daily; I was aware of that. Then…

You leave me hanging for four days. It doesn’t anger me; it doesn’t amuse me either. I just watch the seconds go by, and I realise it is time to take the reins, so I do. I know you are used to being yelled at. I know you are used to tears, obsessions, ultimatums dressed up as devotion. I continue to give you sunshine, and I mean it. “Can we remain friends? I mean, friends who actually…

You are pulling in from Japan as we speak, and I wonder what you have experienced. Will you move there now? I think about the dopamine hits and the fact that I am still anchored to you. Do you feel it too? I am not easy, but at least I am transparent on the dance floor. You noticed in Copenhagen. Through it all, you got my imagination going. I don’t know what is actually you and what is a…

He approaches me in the street. I’ve just bought soda, and as I walk toward him I already know the shape of what’s about to happen. I keep my face averted, like that might interfere with it. It doesn’t. “You look amazing,” he says. “I would like to get to know you.” I notice his chiselled outline, biceps under a tight T-shirt, cheekbones sharp enough to look designed. Skin that looks…