Someone else

We must be drunk, I think. You seem to move with your eyes shut. Four of us picking our way along the grass bank sloped over Princess Road, throats full of cackles that seem to yawn. Calling out songs I don’t recognise. We’re all around ourselves. Beside ourselves. Each step staggers. Knowing where each other is by their footsteps, their breaths, their stumbles. It is bright enough to see under the street lights but we do not look or see. My arm brushes your arm. It is a long long walk towards your homes and it passes in breaths before it’s started. You laugh and ask why I’m still here, when you finally realise.

I should have turned hours ago. I live all the way back in the town centre. And soon enough I am alone again, on that same grass, facing the other way. I return ears still ringing with night voices more than a chorus or a clamour the hallway dark around me.

Suddenly your breath the only thing I can hear. Much much earlier you leaned into me and pushed your mouth against mine, and I inhaled. And now I’m sealing windows and doors and breathing out your air, finally. And the room fills with you, and when I move my lips it’s your words that come out.