She was listening to me talk on the phone to him last night. She said all I could manage was mouth-fragments bending into sullen sounds, and if I hadn’t been lying flat on my back I wouldn’t have been able to speak at all.

I feel as if I’m rowing air out of my lungs; forcing my heart, my chest, my eyes to move against this storm. So many things building up – it seems as if every time I managed to haul something over-board there’s another person, another moment to attend to.

Two years, I think. I’m not even sure of when we were anything. It was when I thought you were here, solid. Things seem so long ago and yet there I was; heart thumping against my ribs, catching balance by lying down with your voice dripping in my ear.

Now we’re both married, both shattered in our marriages. I’m still looking for blue eyes and black hair that curls while you keep writing me, calling me, breathing through me with your memories and the telephone and I don’t want to disappear..

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