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i just lost it, one day
so i massaged all the blue-tac from the letters she once wrote me

about glastonbury and homework and back to school advice
me and my mate were front row for amy winehouse
talking yourself out of dates
the blue tac was feathery and came off in clumps
like feathers from a growing bird
up
shedding its skin, becoming a new and the same thing.

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a sneeze brought down some others, my allergies
eczema, ‘you’ll grow out of that one day too’
how are you finding your new school
speaking with the soft pedal on, that underwater, far away effect,

she’s 18, i’m 9

like some great abyss, a chasm of time between us sheltering and

what-does-this-word-say obscuring me
from the jokes they made
about father christmas and dating ben and his ex-girlfriend heather,

growing up beneath our feet

i grew up beneath their feet, between their toes,

as they walked on and on and on
away from and around me, puffy-eyed pillow fights

i was dizzy

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but then suddenly i am here
and we have all stopped our spinning, and find ourselves
in different cities and countries and counting
twenty, twenty-three, twenty-six, twenty-nine,
arriving constantly at our ages, always this far away in time.

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my wall was a museum to all i had wished and hoped

a mausoleum in the garden of eden
my childhood, in those empty Minnie Mouse envelopes

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