We are comfortable and not particularly talkative. Small talk between us has become unnecessary. The day is punctuated by kisses, holding hands, laughter, soft remarks, pet names. And by the end of the day we have settled into shared silence. Comfortable, though now searching for external stimulus - a friends laugh, another conversation to join, more voices. 

Withal, once joined by others, our affection for each other is reignited. The gestures between us become stronger. Sweeter. As if reminded of how we feel by viewing the relationship from the newcomers eyes. The external stimulus has served its purpose - a reminder of our own preferred company for one another. A readying to renenter our shared world as a duo. 

Spring

The whole concept that our moods and bodies change with the seasons isn’t bullshit but it can be easy to forget.

At the beginning of every winter, like everyone, I lose the energy to do anything and crave pasta, sugar, donuts…anything that’ll enable my body to stockpile cells of fat…

My laziness and indulgence plague me with guilt for at least a month. It always takes around four weeks to realise the cold weather is a legitimate excuse for my lethargy and come to accept it as unchanging. I can entertain no notion of physical activity and instead spend hours in bed with episodes of the original 90210.

By the end of winter, the carb loading has taken it’s toll, my appetite and need for rest show no sign of abdication and my acceptance turns to impatience. The last fortnight of winter is a juxtaposition of forcefully trying to fight the natural urge to hibernate - frantic gym joining, salad eating and misery enduring while simultaneously cramming in the last vestiges of winter allowances - pasta dinners, dessert ordering, doona burrito-ing and trackpant wearing. 

By this tine the depression has also begun to set in. Unsatisfied at work. Creatively stifled. Restricted by winter clothing. Whether the laying low has finally started taking its toll or my skin is just desperate for vitamin D, I don’t know, but by the end of winter I am seriously contemplating anti depressants. I do this every year. Like PMS, I only notice it in hindsight.

It is the first day of Spring today. After three months of gagging at the idea of a raw vegetable, I sat down at lunch, in the sun, with a paleo vegetarian quiche and didn’t want to murder myself or a king sized kit kat afterward. I bought ingredients to make Gado Gado for dinner. I didn’t baulk at the idea of going out to the dance class I’d booked myself into at 730pm. I went home, sat down in the light filled lounge room and worked for a couple of hours without falling asleep on the couch or into a pit of depression and for the first time in a month my mind felt clear and life, manageable. I wasn’t even surprised by it. I just felt relieved and a little silly that I’d failed to remember the intrinsic link between my psyche and the seasons yet again. That it was just the end of winter. And it’s passed.

Regrets

I regret not writing everything down.

I have no notes written from the Chelsea hotel

two weeks spent living in a two bedded room with three women

escaping to the bathroom to masturbate

and sighing over wet bathmats.

A hot New york summer spent teasing my hair

and wearing vintage clothes

hot on the train to coney island

to see Joan Jett.

Walking through central park

wearing heady incense perfume

bought from saks 5th avenue

with too much money to burn.

Bee stung on the toe

still spending the time

inevitably, with another Australian.

Ex lover, ex soul mate and still most

Bob Dylan-esque character in NYC.

3am shitfights to find a hotel room

judged “by the hour?” somewhere to fuck?

Just somewhere to lie down

and shower

next to curly haired familiar body.

A regretful lack of notes from Memphis

walking through dodgy dark fenced parts of town

to hipster bars

shooting bad but free pool alone with Tess

drinking beer

happy in a derelict part of town

feeling a sense of belonging

despite platinum credit card

and expensive hair

talking to the barman

as equals

i dont think i was even smoking then

Regrets having no pen 

in Nashville

chasing fireflies

sick with flu

uncaring after drinking it away

Wrote a little in LA

but not enough.

Now left with images of 

melrose vintage gowns

and a feeling

of sexual awakening while

walking down wide busy roads

lined with shops but no people.

Walking all day

everybody else driving.

Sun on my shoulders.

Did I sit in the palm tree shade by the side of the road

or is that a made up romanticised memory 

Vegas heat

depressed misunderstood

massaged in the middle of nowhere

to feel touched, felt.

Haunted by judgement of families

at the slot machines

mens eyes on my short skirt

in line for the buffet

like a dish.

Walking kilometres of strip

with drinks in hand

casino after casino

looking for what?

the next stop

i don’t remember.

Driving through forests

stopping at gas stations 

buying small tokens of americana

even at the shittiest stops.

And an amusement park.

Constantly looking for a hotel

near a lake or body of water

to swim in the forest.

We never succeeded.

Rolling though fields

at Bethel

rubbing the cells of the 70s

on our bodies

in a cliched attempt at grasping

a remnant

capturing a nostalgia for something

we never lived.

in memory the light is always bright but muted.

The Junction

Is it a dream
Your touch
Your hands
Curling inward
Your phallic enterprise
And everything it stands for

Are you not
The manifestation
Of magnification
Of most honest moments
Captured in mind

And to what do I owe this pleasure
This promiseless venture
My life?
As it exists
Just Now or 

forever?

A gain and a loss
A junction between
Impossible choice
What of this
Predicament
Which leads 

To nobody's
Deliverance

What of choice
Between boy who promises manhood
And man who promises
Such Sweet nothing

A repeated story
To be sure
Of upending everything
That has been stood for
In name of
Love?
Pleasure?

A constant craving for more
Perfection
Connection
Of the highest regard
Would you deem connection
Based On values
Compassion
And continued presence
Or spirit,
matching breath
And shared stillness.

On a promise made
A love felt
Long ago
Or one felt now
With no promise of tomorrow 

Response in Gold

An Understanding
Of ones personal tactile embrace 
Came early. 
Remembering my own
While All others blur,
After the moment 
Has bronzed.
Satisfaction 
Came later 
At the penmanship 
Of own mind 
And natural resolve,

Gentle power 
In curved lines
And pretty face,
Older confidence 
And naked traces 
Of knowing;
touch. 
A curling of finger toward handsome man
Surprising power 
In a beckoning of love 
won, easily  

A continual pattern 
Unbroken by
Any battle between novices
In which touch was
unremembered
Unrecalled 
Or Unrivalled

Gold, Experienced;
With face 
As sunlight filters, strongly 
Through muted skies  
Above Paris,
Heating adolescent body. 
Lingering 
On daylit skin
At night 

Gold experienced 
With mouth 
In European hotel, 
Laid back. 

Gold, experienced 
In shallow transactions 
Enjoyed fully 
In the respite from light 
Within air conditioned 
Shopping malls 
Many times the question asked 
In Printemps 
"Combien?"

But a true bar of gold; experienced 
With both hands,
Always. 
with an impermanent hold 

Touch;
Always a reflection of intention
Without humility 
Becomes perilous 
And only true Midas 
Can touch 
Without intention
To disturb
(Or to disturb, peacefully)
Stillness begets sureness 
And awareness, choice
The touch, a gift, bestowed secondarily
Occurring with Unending energy 
Of kindness
And without intention. 
Gold,
Like touch, is Often gifted
And Valued highly
Though gold, 
melts with heat
Touch melts, 
And must be handled 
Temperately. 

For, Like gold 
When too often touched
Turns brassy 
Touch 
When overused
Dulls the shine
Of each touch
Leaving no heat but marks
And marked 
value 

Does not the value
Of gold
Hold
Entirely in its rarity. 

For Isn't gentleness 
the answer 
To most things 
That are not hindered 
clumsily by time
Or ambition. 

30 Summers.

Summer was the multitude of swimwear hanging over the towel rack in the bathroom

It was short shorts and red nails on the overheating pavement of kings cross

Big hair, headbands and rig.

Bloody marys in the morning

An unquenchable thirst for champagne.

It was drinking coffee again and revisiting hot nights at 77.

It was rolled cigarettes on the windowsill

Shared sunsets on the rooftop

It was golden girls in bed

And men, too. 

A season of heavily intoxicated vices.

It was riding fast on motorbikes

one handed.

And riding fast with both hands 

clutching fistfuls of hair. 

Valley overlooking tree houses

Magical new friends
Old feuds, ended.

A hand around my throat

First times

And last times before their time.

Madonna in the shower

Nights listening to the blues

The bottom of a whiskey glass.

It was ceiling fans and beach afternoons

Making out all over Sydney.

It was sitting at my desk and writing, again.

Parties at Aimees house.

Parties everywhere.

It was long mornings in sheets

And afternoon naps

It was Bowie.

So much Bowie.

And lots of glitter.

Glittering your whiskers.

It was the summer of all emotions and no tears.

Guitar lessons on Tristan’s floor

Naked swims at redleaf twice in the last week of summer in a last ditch attempt to grab it by the reins.

There’s a serenade crew in the bedroom taking turns on the guitar

And my own silence, drowned out by orgasmic groans.

It was dangling my legs in Emily’s pool

Like teenagers, in denim shorts and baseball t shirts

Sweaty dancefloors and neverending entertainment

Lunchbreaks at the beach

and life mimicking novels.

A summer than began with confident independence.

And ended in overheated senses.

A summer like heady jasmine.

Ripe, over scented, sickening and addictive.

Getting Wet

'Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for Man - who has no gills.' - Ambrose Bierce

'The Ocean stands for God or Nature, the sole substance, and individual beings are like waves - which are modes of the sea.' - Spinoza