Dialogue

It’s easy enough to get in-between things, easy enough to see
you sway in the library corridor between your shadow and the rainy window

I sway in the library corridor between my shadow and the rainy window, when
it comes up in a quiet moment, the current hitting the backs of my knees and

you’re on the carpet –

how did the water get in here? The ceiling looks like glitter, got to beat the pain home, got to get out of the light
I say: no no no, not on a Wednesday, please – I can’t lie here, I can’t spend two more hours on my own, I’ve been here since –

Don’t worry baby, there’s nothing to do now; you can go home! If you

if I can walk to the train station, if I can move

I can take care of you! – In the chaos

there’s no room for anyone else – so I fade

and what’s left of you feels

like my skin’s the only calm between the blinding outside of me and the blinding inside

of you. It feels like the sea, the rush like your heartbeat and the notifications on your phone

hum out in time, the little blades using it as their percussion when they’re skating their circuits around my eye sockets, lap after lap, things go very fast these days, or does it

just seem like that because you’re not moving? Around you it’s all like a ballet, an opera; the rain on the window sings the tenor part,

the part but in a different key – the sharps and flats are all mixed up –
Lord knows my real lover wouldn’t pull shit like this, couldn’t I have her teeth in my neck instead?

Little blades running their spirals poke through, but your brain won’t shift. Still something’s got to come out

of my mouth and gravity won’t play, it can’t be words with my love so far away –

So stay on the floor baby. The carpet’s all sticky

with everything staining it, my hair tangled up in it, there’s nothing to do

but wait. I can start again,

tell me something of yours or more stories about
all the things I missed, or the time I missed, or the lover I miss.∎

 

 Words by Ro Crawford. Art by Holly Anderson.