Saturday night at the City’s edge; damp, dark, lonely, not yet eleven.
As I stepped into the Unicorn, my eyes stormed with winds and dreamt deeds, I met yours, inked in red calligraphy against the dim light, your fingers strumming strings for Double Trouble, the rumbling growl of power sneaking into my bones, paying no customs. When I turned my head, I missed you already.
For days you played the romantic lover, and I drank you in while your right thumb gently rubbed the short hairs at the base of my skull. I lost myself in your guitar beat, in your body drenched in muscles, in the salty sweat just beneath the heart, in your voice, always raspy with desire.
The night you had friends over I found you mumbling plosives as the bass pulse thumped against the walls. Smoke curled and clung to kitchen cupboards, bottles of cheep wine bunched and bulged on the table, glamorous girls sparkled and sneered around your shoulder, their glossy, painted faces slipping out of focus.
I ignored all advice and pinning a veil on my head I strode into a world inhabited by too many women who had done the same. And as we carried grocery bags and pushed trolleys in supermarkets and parking lots, we exchanged the knowing wink of rivals and allies. We all learned to spin a thousand small pirouettes, twists and feints in the campaign to tame the one we loved, to hold on just a little longer.
Today you’re just punching the keyboard, safety and routine having long conquered danger and adventure.
Today I am a warrior, my eyes full of dust rising in swarms, craving the battlefield.
And when I kiss you goodbye, and turn my head to leave, I miss you no more.
Marinela Davies is a teacher and translator. Her fiction grows of memory and the quiet details of everyday life. Although she began writing later in life her imagination refuses to wait and she is making up for lost time. You can find her at @marineladavies.
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