Billie says / after 1am / everything is maccas / and we laugh / but she’s right / in this glowing / in this winter / in this house party / house warm / two many sheds in the back yard / not enough chairs in the backyard / the crook of love stretched somewhere in my elbow here / like how we all have done it / and it may not have been tonight / but we have all sat in a summer that you slept in glitter / woke up in sunlight / always shimmering / somehow always day and night / halcyon days / you know / you know / because it has felt / at times / that we sit now in the storms Aeolus kept / while that summer stretches between the shoulders of years past / how I sit now in plenty of cars / but it might never be all the right people again / how it stills / and hangs there / all that history / you know what I’m talking about / it is very easy to romanticise all this / tell you the moon is full and red tonight / she is everything you dream her to be tonight / tell you you’ll fall deep in love tonight / tell you in the paradise we lost / there is always water there / tell you no matter what / every day is the sweet summer one / that’s really night / talking only flat-sheet and lover holding tight / you know / you know / sore throat morning / tired morning / woman singing Dido’s White Flag coffee shop morning / strong woman / I’m talking / rent my child house out to strangers who will never know it’s value / no / I’m not talking money / but you knew that / because you / too / have had a childhood home that has known a summer hotter than the fire that burned it / and no / I’m not talking flame / but you knew that / you know many things / smart one / child one / holding leftovers in every room one / I can’t possibly help myself / but you / strong woman / fault weighs heavy / strong woman / I / too / should have carried weight / have carried weight / carry this winter between my shoulders / there / who did this to you / Atlas asking / he did not hold the world for nothing / because he did not hold the world at all / who did this to you / holding all these stars / walking streets with all these stars / walking to maccas with all these stars / burgers are better with all these stars

everyone keeps going on and on about this big world we are in / but really it is so small / & he says my name after that / & it falls off his tongue like silk / & i want to thank him for holding it so safely / and i want to tell him that in another universe / where maybe he doesn’t move from croatia to australia in ’97 / where the summers don’t stick his back door closed / where time doesn’t pass so damn quickly / while the world changes / & our mother’s hairs go grey / in that other universe where we all live in shangri-la / & i don’t mean the luxury hotel chain / i mean the place hilton wrote about / in that other universe/ i want to tell him that i think my dad would be a man like him / kind and blood no longer heavy with ethanol / kind and no longer heavy with grief / but i don’t say anything / & he points to a tree in the shadows of dark / & tells me in ’97 i could have slept there / & not a soul would have bothered me / & i wonder what he’s thinking / picking up a kid like me this late / because i feel like a kid in the front seat of this car / that feels hollow / or makes me feel hollow / while headlights skip beats / & i only see half of the streets / & i will stumble to my front door / while he checks i get in safe / even though i know he doesn’t have to / even though we both know he doesn’t have to / but if he doesn’t who will / because it’s late / & the front light wasn’t left on / because i forgot / so as i fumble for keys / i think / it’s been a long time since someone checked / i think / it’s been a long time since i’ve had to tell someone I’ll be home late / texted my mama to tell her my bed will / be empty for a while longer than usual / & so i rush back to the hollow car / & i say thank you / again and soft / again and kind / again / & i feel the ethanol in my own blood / & i say / sorry / again and soft / again and kind / again/ sorry / sorry i didn’t want to be this / sorry i’m scared / sorry i always knew i would turn out like him / because i am / the most like him / even in the alternate universe / i still take my coffee black there / i still sometimes feel like i am the doa that ruined everyone’s night there / because that’s what he’s always been for us / & I am back at the window of the hollow car now / & the man smiles gently / so small / he says again / & i know he’s right / but i can’t help but think that / here in the dim light of almost dawn / because it’s gotten that late now / or early i suppose / here / i have never felt so far from everybody who knows me / but instead I say/ you know when you said / that you moved ‘here’ / for a moment i thought ‘here’ wasn’t this place / but the place i have been looking for / & that you somehow managed to find

the 7-eleven is quiet, empty, we scour it for snacks, searching for the ache to our crave, won’t admit we’ll never find here - in these aisles that you can see over so it will never feel like a grocery store, instead we fill the void with sausage rolls and $2 coffee (which actually doesn’t taste too bad) clamber back into car seats that have held us so long they could be mistaken as home, could be, they aren’t though - we mistake each other for that - fold bodies into bodies and pretend we know the difference between limbs, pretend it matters to know the difference but know that at the root of this, of this almost chance encounter, at the root of it we are only what we mean to one another and it’s not much, it’s really not all that much, we just wanted to find warmth, wanted to bathe in a heat that wasn’t sunlight, under a light that was only stars and wax poetic about it after we’ll pull the shedded clothing back to our skin, sip cold coffee, pretending we don’t mind, and still try to find small talk here, the tiniest of it as well, so tiny i decide not to find it for the most part - let you fill the gaps we couldn’t together oh it’s such a broken encounter and a funny one that clings to me, i memorise the first three letters of your number plate, look again and again in each car park afterwards leftovers i called it. carrying takeaway containers of everyone i’ve held. my arms are so heavy. the 7-eleven has never been more silent

when i say i am lost / what i mean is / i have been / reached for the diet coke in the quiet that lends itself to the Raine Square Coles on one of those nights / and even as i look at my hand / i know it’s wrong / or it has been / and lost is not the same as losing / even if the way they clang out of my unruly mouth rings the same in my ears / and if it is not / then i have been lost and i have been losing / and they have been separate / while still on the same day / in the same hour / and when the diet coke sweats itself slick in my palm / when i say i don’t have the means to pay for this / i mean i do / i have plenty / but not in truths / they / too / slip in my palm / and off my tongue / and when i say i have been writing / what i mean is / i have been trying / like Hanif / like Olivia / like Adrianne / like Andrea / like Neil / like the greats that come before me / and on my way there / i got lost / that’s what i mean / how i talk about poets and songwriters alike / because we are all the same / just breathing to a different humming that sounds like the deep breath before we start