time and time

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I wrote this about a funny slice of my life that I shared with Seb in Sydney and sometimes memories that are kind of sad and kind of important are the clearest in my mind.

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I wake after only a pocketful of hours spent lightly sleeping under my black silk sheet that I’ve taken with me round the world for the last three years (lightweight for packing), and it has a certain smell that reminds me of a bus ride through Germany and the song We Three by Patti. Outside the decrepit hostel window is a brick wall coloured blue by the sleepy morning light that’s struggling to rise and shine but already it’s warm on my skin and the air is salty. I snooze my alarm and stare at the ceiling which is close to my face cause I’m a top bunk girl this morning and tomorrow is the last day of the year and we’re both excited to start something new. My knapsack is brown leather with chunky zips and one half is a shade darker because my Dad once spilt a coffee on it in Paris it was his bag once. He said the Parisians laughed in the café when he knocked the cup and he laughed along with them to be polite then kicked a chair over on his way out. I don’t know what good a thing like that achieves but I’d probably feel like doing the same. Small victories that no one else remembers. I slept in my clothes and now need only put on my kimono and Docs, with my rings on my fingers I roll a smoke for the road and whisper hey i’m leaving to Seb who’s sleeping and I crawl into his bunk for a full body hug and it’s a strange thing to know that we’re both leaving this weird hostel in this weird part of the world and travelling in opposite directions. I stand in the doorway and we whisper bye and Seb’s a shadow in a cave and I take a mental picture cause we wont see each other for month or so and I’m jealous of the time that passes around us. I cross the creaky hallway and snake downstairs to the outside air now fresh and warm and the sea is at the doorstep, I feel a part of the post card looking out at the sand and the coastal homes that face the sun and smile down on bondi like boxes with faces. The construction workers are ants in orange setting up cyclone fences in preparation for the new year’s celebration and I gaze at the little path we walked the night before to the look-out point to look at the tide playing cat power and passing the time with a smoothie between us and a smoke passed back and forth. My cab arrives and when I’m in it I close my eyes and pretend I could be anywhere in the world. At the airport I order a bloody mary and re-read the last few pages of In the Winter Dark because I’m not ready to put that one away just yet. My heart’s in the Sink and my gypsy half’s still in Sydney while I watch the ground get closer at Tullamarine and life has a way of sneaking up on you sometimes. 

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My beautiful friend Eilish wrote this song using some words I'd written and I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful creative types.

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soap sud skin I’m falling

through my mind and time

and time again

I find you sitting drinking

wine and smiling

in that way that makes me

wanna tear down the sun ‘cause

I’m done seeing clearly

no light shed on my

masochistic victory

and I’m blinded by the smoke machine

and the men are scared

of beautiful things

I wish your eyes weren’t so mean I

wish you weren’t scared

of beautiful things.

pockets full of calling cards

and freckles like a slap of stars

that spell out run bitch, run. I’m done

re-thinking all the words and sinking

my hands into dirty dishes I’m

pretending to pray in that optimistic way

as if a high power

would give a shit about us

but anyway I wish I didn’t

give a shit about us today

kisses like leeches

unceremonious taking

and taking, you’ve been throwing rocks

at my window and didn’t anybody tell you

I’m not home for you anymore

I live on a plane and I’m always

going somewhere (in my mind)

the cabin crew are tiring

of my calls for Hendricks and lime but

I’m going places going places going places

sorry to leave you behind, I’m fine

on my own two feet I’m flirting

with a goodbye letter written in caps cause you don’t know

how to love without hurting

but I’m going places going places going places

sorry to leave you behind.

~