She said “I feel numb”
I said “That doesn’t make sense - numbness is a lack of feeling.”
She said I knew what she meant and I did
I was just talking

I’m not a pedant but I was hesitant to let silence walk in
I took her hand and I kissed each knuckle
It didn’t register at first but then she smiled a smile that meant fuck all

"I don’t think I wanna fight it." she said without eye contact
“I want my last breath to be a laugh, not the last gasp of a lab rat.”
And I had nothing to say back
Just smiled and kissed each knuckle again, comfort rewound and played back

We left through the lobby as I texted Skaghead Bobby - nice name, right?
He said he’d run out, but if we dropped off cash now he could sort us out the same night
So we dropped off a little money and went and had happy meals
“Lady’s choice!” I had said and she chose to pay Ronald McDonald’s bills

I wore an upper-half face mask of the hamburglar
And we took it in turns not to laugh as we ate the equivalent weight of a third of her
I used to buy weed off Bobby, back in my late teens
He was as shady as his moniker but he could facilitate our new needs

Neither of us had done ecstasy before but we bought three tabs each
Fuck it! You only live once and that’s at the most it would seem
We walked along the south bank wrapped up warm in coats and gloves
We sang songs, ran in circles, laughed and fell in love
It wasn’t real love of course, just a chemical alternative
But that was all we required; temporary life-affirming shit
We were beauty that night - through drug-tinted glasses
The sun shone on us through the dark skies as the rest of the world passed us

Our long foot adventure took us all the way down to Greenwich
Start to finish four hours give or take oh, a few minutes
Around ten forty-five as we sat on a bench the place glew in the dark
You could see right across the river from the Cutty Sark to Milwall Park

We shared a kiss at that moment with no sexual undercurrents
She jumped to her feet and said “Let’s play a game!”
“If you can catch me right now, I will tell you my name.”
And with that she turned and ran as I promptly gave chase

Through streets and alleyways as laughs cascaded from her face
And again I have no doubt it was down to the chemicals
But she seemed to float and glow as we bounded on like thin blood through white ventricles
All of a sudden, like in slow motion, she hurled herself into the air

And then in the blinking sound of a splash, I was stood all alone there
There was no flailing or splashes - just the first one that broke the surface
I heard that when a girl writes off the world it’s done in cursive

I’d met her that morning in the waiting room at 7am
And 16 beautiful hours later, I’d never see her again