on hard work

she was stuck in the red tape.

her hair flowed like every romance she'd ever had.

long with tints and aubern tinted, when the growth was new. as it aged it fell kinked around her face. growing scraggy at the ends.

as a young girl she'd sucked on it repeatedly. couldn't stop putting things in her mouth. on excessively hot or cold days she'd still find wisps of it at her lips. would find private times interrupted by hair balls and the need to cough.

not that it mattered.

she had scissors by the bucket loads. where once clumsy fingers struggled she was adept at cutting out lines. sharp and laboured metal chinking together set the rythem to her day. carboard shreds strewn across the loungeroom for her flatmates to pick up when they got home.

do you remember how we used to kiss?

cold noses rubbing up against each other as we invented new depths of warmness in synchronicity to the connex announcements. in the passing of time i realise that what we made was love as the four walls of the flemington house shook with each passing train.

i live in the desert now. that city and all my identities are summarised in books in my friends cafes. those same motifs that used to define me remained patched to a wardrobe of that never sees the light of day. receeding like tram tracks at 1am. the last moments of opportunity are not lost. they linger and distort like light on the ranges.

i wonder if your life, also, has changed.