Do you remember throwing your shadow under mine with our bodies backlit by soft lamps in a bedroom as bare as you and I were? Do you remember making abstract shapes with our skin, once water and oil, now as mixed as time and tide? Do you remember laughter? Do you remember smiling? Do you remember saying ‘I don’t care what happens to a single fucking soul as long as you’re alive’ Do you remember any of this? Do you remember anything at all? Or do you just say ‘what an awful way that we killed time’

You had always been draped in something I couldn’t recognize. The texture was unfamiliar, the shape was too obscure and it fit you like a long heavy chain. I tried to pull it off but it broke my wrists. I tried to love it but it burned my skin. And when you saw that it had hurt me, you took it off but something stayed. I watched whatever you had carried sit there waiting. I saw you naked and ashamed. Knew that no matter how painfully tight the piece had fit, sometimes it’s the only thing that fit your broken frame

It’s a stupid fucking game, by the way - this reaching and letting go and reaching and letting go. The second I’ve got you in my arms, I loosen up and count to a higher number than I did the last time, giving you a bigger head start than the one you had before. Is the thrill really in the chase or is it in remembering how perfectly you were shaped before you finally shut the door? I held you in my palm gentle, like you’d crack at any moment, unaware that you were a brilliantly polished stone. But the smoother the stone, the easier it slips through and the easier it is to throw