alchemy days

we are walking past the college tennis courts, abandoned for october. the path is littered with leaves, i am laughing breathlessly at something. we race home to make something new together.

the name of your street doesn't have the word "street" or "road" at the end of it. it's just a name. it sounds like a destination, a small town in and of itself, separate from London. as i peel my trainers off you put on the kettle, we talk about classes and what we've been listening to lately. you step into the garden with a cigarette and i lean on the sliding door. there are two rainbows above your head, there's a pine tree by the wall.

the air chills, and we retreat into your room for the work to begin. the monitors are propped up by books, whatever you've picked up from the library. the curtains are closed and your bed is unmade. there is always a pile of clothes in a corner. it's night now.

in the lamplight, we are two young alchemists who have no idea what we want to uncover. it only comes in flashes -- when my voices layer like ghostsheets, or we find a particularly good "crunch" on a snare. you let me set the EQ and i push it ever so slightly in one direction and the next, like i'm feeling in the dark for a soft-breathing animal.

one day i come to you and you stare into the distance, as we're sitting in the dark. we only have a lamp on and the blue of your laptop. a friend of yours has died. we talk about ghosts and the afterlife and the songs that remind you of them. we sit and listen. you close your eyes like you're waiting for your mind to settle, trying to bring up the right thing to say, like a hook hovering in the water. i wait. we hold hands in the dark and in that moment i feel like it is the most brutally intimate thing i've ever done.

you cancel on me a few times. one day i get off the bus and stand at the station, waiting for your call. i send two texts. stand in the cold for half an hour. then i go home. you text the next day with an apology. i say its fine, i was just worried about you.

our meetings become fewer, the sky changes and then it seems like it's been too many seasons since we saw each other last. we let the songs hibernate and we don't call anymore.

i have a dream one night where you come back and apologise. i run down a corridor and want to scream at you. we kiss on a sea cliff. i wake up the next day and write to you.

it's been nearly a year.

by chance, there's always a moon in the sky when we are walking. what phase are we in now? last quarter, waxing, maybe. there's chains of stars that grow a little each second i look longer at them. you let me stare for a breath, and then we keep walking.