collapsing headfirst
into my teacup, spoon
resting-on-rim.
just onehour&six
minutes to midnight.
today was almost awful.
after an age of preludes to education ((during which my stomach moaned in agony)), i stalked away from a free lunch. stalked. definitely. i just wriggled my way through the cue of hungry fellow-first-years & stormed off campus with headphones shoved in my ears. despite karaoke, tours & comedy night, i couldn't stay there a minute longer. my mad rush-of-feet made its way into a cafe & i sat there sipping coffee, listening to the radio, watching the people, reading the paper & befriending the waitress. & there in that sunny little cafe, i felt safer. every apprehension, anxiety & frustration just blew away with the breeze, as if they were ancient volumes crumbling at the lightest touch.
when the waitress gave me my change, she took my hand between her palms & said thank you my good friend as though we had known each other for a century or more.
afterwards i dragged myself up near the school & rested a while, besotted by a book on the culture of architecture. i stayed there for two hours. i sat there even when i could feel my back burning in the heat, even when i saw the angrygrey clouds sweep across the skies. i sat there while nostalgia ran right over me, while every regret seemed twice as potent, twice as grave.
this place is almost awful too. all i can do here is think about your conspiracy. & it's getting me sad. & i'm crying over foolish things again. & i'm finding differences to match the distance between us.
you don't even know me anymore.
you don't know about the clothes i wear, my obsession with coffee, the way i scribble things onto serviettes then cry into them later, only to have tears & ink all over my hands, a crumpled artwork on the floor.
you don't know that i love vintage shopping, but only when i'm alone. you don't know that i listen to the blues when i'm sad, jazz when i'm walking. you don't even know how much walking i do.
you never did know how happy it made me feel to feed the ducks, how disappointed i was whenever i ran out of bread for them. you don't know how it pains me to write, but it hurts twice as much to let it go, that i've been writing for years now to solve myself when you never could. you don't know how much suffering i've done across a lifetime. how many sunsets i've watched, how few sunrises i've seen.
you don't know that when i fall asleep, i fall forever,
when i'm awake i cannot shut my eyes for a moment.
you don't know that an artist lives next door & that i can't find a favourite food or movie. you don't know about my postcard collection & how it drives my mum mad. you don't know that i need new superglue, that my sunscreen permanently inhabits my bag. you don't know that it takes me months, sometimes years, to find the perfect bag, the perfect pair of shoes.
you don't know that i hate compliments, that i go walking in the rain. you don't know my favourite cut of jeans, my favourite tea, book or poem. you don't know how i love feeling lonely because i'm allowed to cry a little harder.
you just don't know me at all.
& if you're so uninformed,
why did your words seem
like a blow to my body?