Where Every Scroll is a New Adventure
On moving out
We are all still here together
The sound of my brother’s guitar still creeps into my room long after his 11pm curfew
Next year those fugitive notes will wind themselves furtively through other walls
This summer though, everyone’s shoes still sit on the shoe rack
The key hooks are full
We still buy sultana bran and jatz crackers and his brand of shaving cream when we go shopping
This summer feels like a full moon
Whole and round, like a cake nobody has cut into
Yet
It’s candles are flickering brightly
But I can hear the first chords of happy birthday
He will come back, of course.
But will he have grown while I’m not looking?
A tree falling in a forest full of people other people I don’t know
Schroedinger’s little brother
What will I no longer know about him
This bright creature, eagerly unfurling from his chrysalis while I still find myself wriggling, fuzzy and green
Curly headed rogue
I will send all of my nicest things with you
Pistachio cake and dandelion wishes and that warm staticky feeling when you get the harmony just right
Recount your adventures to me when you get home
Who knows? Maybe when you return I will have grown too
and we will show each other our new colours
On not feeling your age
I wake up and there is a teenage magpie
Sitting on the windowsill in my parents bedroom
It still wears it’s baby feathers
When the mother comes to find it they are the same size but she is sleek and sharp-beaked
high heels and pencil skirt to the unicorn-print jumper of it’s downy fluff
It sits on the windowsill, opening and closing its wings
It won’t look down, and it squawks at us when we come close, but it won’t fly away either
This summer I feel like that teenage magpie
I love this house but it’s starting to feel like something I am too old to keep
It feels like playing with your little sister just so you can have a turn with the dollhouse
Even though you’re already thirteen and you know (you know!) you’re too old
There is something in my bones that tells me I should be getting a mortgage right about now
I don’t dream about romance. I’ve no clue how people my age go about procuring that kind of thing
but sometimes I feel like I should be thinking about where to go for my wedding anniversary, or whether the babysitter will be available that night
Then I sit in the back seat of a car with my parents in the front and I feel like I should be setting my alarm for six thirty
Polishing my black lace up shoes and looking under my bed for the tie I carelessly discarded the night before
I was born middle aged and yet I’m still a child at twenty
How did everyone else learn to act their age when I wasn’t looking?
Maybe I have arrested my own development
Because I don’t want to outgrow this yet
This bedroom, this seat at the dinner table, this spot next to my mother on the couch at night
This life tastes sweet like orange juice
But I wonder where everyone else is getting the vodka I’m watching them add