Lincoln Kate

poetry, prose, fact and fiction @lincoln_kate_lally

[linolinguistic]

3am....

At 3am the silent echoes

Of a dead street beg

For one more round.

Hope is the loudest compound

And this alloy turns to rust

In the corners of the bed.

Imagine your mouth salivating at

The edges of a dream the mind

Refuses to replicate.

Fortitude becomes the body bent

Into a question mark after logic.

One pillow tries to muffle

The fingers gunning down

Every optimistic bone

Asking for happiness

Over education.

How the madness at 3am

Swells behind the ears.

How the pages flip in

The fan of ashes in an

Unmade bed.

Never been real.

Never fit in an old

Crease of familiarity.

Never been a smooth cover

With the bumps of everything

Swept under.

Here again.

Back in the lucid land

Of a decision.

Laid down battle scars

To the weight of tomorrow’s leaving.

Sleep solidifies mantras from

Marked pages of a message thread.

The thoughts don’t leave

At 3am.

[linolinguistic]

When I can’t tell you I love you, I kiss your shoulder, your knee, your back. The words slip from my lips onto your skin and you never hear me.

[linolinguistic]

3am....

At 3am the silent echoes

Of a dead street beg

For one more round.

Hope is the loudest compound

And this alloy turns to rust

In the corners of the bed.

Imagine your mouth salivating at

The edges of a dream the mind

Refuses to replicate.

Fortitude becomes the body bent

Into a question mark after logic.

One pillow tries to muffle

The fingers gunning down

Every optimistic bone

Asking for happiness

Over education.

How the madness at 3am

Swells behind the ears.

How the pages flip in

The fan of ashes in an

Unmade bed.

Never been real.

Never fit in an old

Crease of familiarity.

Never been a smooth cover

With the bumps of everything

Swept under.

Here again.

Back in the lucid land

Of a decision.

Laid down battle scars

To the weight of tomorrow’s leaving.

Sleep solidifies mantras from

Marked pages of a message thread.

The thoughts don’t leave

At 3am.

[linolinguistic]

Dream Walking

The bumps of the flannelette sheet beneath Kira’s ass were the same pattern as the goose skin on the tops of her thighs. Her fingers walked over the tiny hills and she started the slow decent down the green slope. Winter was coming and she was coming home to a hot water bottle and ox tail soup her father cooked. Her limbs shifted and she rolled into the kitchen to shovel in the food. She couldn’t be late. She turned again and found a cool spot between the sheets and wondered what the time was. The clock in the kitchen was hidden behind the blurred back of her mother’s head at the stove. 

Elijah’s skin held the day as he begun slipping through the sheets and hopeful dreams. His naked flesh insulated the bed and the wave he has riding. The weather was set to be perfect in the morning, as long as the wet suit on the line dried by then. He would be awake then but for now, he would ride that wave until he met the confluence of river and sea. He still had time though. Elijah watched the light of the water dance in diamonds on the sand below before smiling up at the sun. His foot flinched and he fell in. 

Kira was swimming in the vein of a barista spinning milk. She had stopped in for her usual coffee before her meeting on the moon and fell under the skin. It was warm and wet and her backstroke was adding to the twirl. Day had long disappeared and her eyelids no longer existed as the curtain to this narrative. She would have to swim through the sea of her past lover’s front doors that kept clogging up her exit. Kira was nothing if not punctual and no clogged pores would stop her rendezvous. There was to be a throne, the view of Earth and stepping into the dark side of the moon but not before slipping into the belly of blind beast that hid in the corner of the room with one eye open. 

The barking outside Elijah’s window echoed though the cave pools he surfaced in. On the edge lay a still body. It didn’t move and he couldn’t recognise it in the shadows. He swan towards it until the twinkling of the dripping stalactites became an endless sky of liquorice and icing sugar. He was early and he could still see the dark shape just beyond the line of the horizon. It was also colder than he expected and he pulled the sun over his shoulders. For someone perpetually late, he had managed to arrive first. He walked backwards and snaked his feet watching the dust settle in the air like a snow globe. 

Small windows of opportunity came as the beast continued to feast. Kira could have climbed up if she wasn’t being pummelled by the chunks of the microwave ding next door. She stopped clawing at the cotton walls and breathed. Under her skin, a galactic wind picked up. She was puked into a continual fall through humidity. She was three planets too far and rolled over Orions belt to the moon. She could see the throne and a plasticine earth but no Elijah. 

If time existed, would it still in the eye of a storm? Elijah was standing between fictional winds and reality. He was watching the whirring sky melt into light and his feet danced around with it on the backs on his eyelids. Through the carousel, a glimmer of gold caught his eye and he turned to it. The storm settled with each step and the glimmer grew into the throne he had initially set out for. From behind it, he could see two legs dangling over the right arm of the chair. 

The green velvet cushion that covered the right arm of the throne was itchy. The remnant of her parents’ psychedelic days with years of old dust irritated the back of her legs. Kira rubbed them back and forward until little sparks feel to the ground and sizzled the soil. The smoke diffused itself along the ground like a heavy fog. Kira watched it creep under the other side of the throne and meet a long stretched shadow. It trampolined back and forth until she was all in shadow. He was here. 

[linolinguistic]

Dreamwalking

The bumps of the flannelette sheet beneath Kira’s ass were the same pattern as the goose skin on the tops of her thighs. Her fingers walked over the tiny hills and she started the slow decent down the green slope. Winter was coming and she was coming home to a hot water bottle and ox tail soup her father cooked. Her limbs shifted and she rolled into the kitchen to shovel in the food. She couldn’t be late. She turned again and found a cool spot between the sheets and wondered what the time was. The clock in the kitchen was hidden behind the blurred back of her mother’s head at the stove. 

Elijah’s skin held the day as he begun slipping through the sheets and hopeful dreams. His naked flesh insulated the bed and the wave he has riding. The weather was set to be perfect in the morning, as long as the wet suit on the line dried by then. He would be awake then but for now, he would ride that wave until he met the confluence of river and sea. He still had time though. Elijah watched the light of the water dance in diamonds on the sand below before smiling up at the sun. His foot flinched and he fell in. 

Kira was swimming in the vein of a barista spinning milk. She had stopped in for her usual coffee before her meeting on the moon and fell under the skin. It was warm and wet and her backstroke was adding to the twirl. Day had long disappeared and her eyelids no longer existed as the curtain to this narrative. She would have to swim through the sea of her past lover’s front doors that kept clogging up her exit. Kira was nothing if not punctual and no clogged pores would stop her rendezvous. There was to be a throne, the view of Earth and stepping into the dark side of the moon but not before slipping into the belly of blind beast that hid in the corner of the room with one eye open. 

The barking outside Elijah’s window echoed though the cave pools he surfaced in. On the edge lay a still body. It didn’t move and he couldn’t recognise it in the shadows. He swan towards it until the twinkling of the dripping stalactites became an endless sky of liquorice and icing sugar. He was early and he could still see the dark shape just beyond the line of the horizon. It was also colder than he expected and he pulled the sun over his shoulders. For someone perpetually late, he had managed to arrive first. He walked backwards and snaked his feet watching the dust settle in the air like a snow globe. 

Small windows of opportunity came as the beast continued to feast. Kira could have climbed up if she wasn’t being pummelled by the chunks of the microwave ding next door. She stopped clawing at the cotton walls and breathed. Under her skin, a galactic wind picked up. She was puked into a continual fall through humidity. She was three planets too far and rolled over Orions belt to the moon. She could see the throne and a plasticine earth but no Elijah. 

If time existed, would it still in the eye of a storm? Elijah was standing between fictional winds and reality. He was watching the whirring sky melt into light and his feet danced around with it on the backs on his eyelids. Through the carousel, a glimmer of gold caught his eye and he turned to it. The storm settled with each step and the glimmer grew into the throne he had initially set out for. From behind it, he could see two legs dangling over the right arm of the chair. 

[linolinguistic]

If I made you exist

If i have already spelled you

onto this plane

And spun your secrets into

A body

Conquered alchemy

Then surely

I can make you disappear

With an abra kadabra

And an alakazam

Two men watch

And i disappear

Or so we think

Even I have tricked myself

To only seeing the curtain

Denied the droplets

Of my blood at the scene

I haven’t earned the title of

Magician

Because still behind the red velvet

Is a heart that

Melts at

The smell of smoke bombs, hack saws

And your secret drawers

My magic

That can pull rats from pockets

And pick their locks and

saw myself in half

And chant their names

Into nonexistence

And this is the show

Eyes sparkled with glitter

But the distraction tastes

Bitter once I know that

i am the trick

I am the fool

The crowd will just

As quickly forget to

Remember my name

When I leave town

I wish that the

Mystery would linger for life

Taking your knee

And becoming the

Trouble and strife

You uncurl in the night.

[linolinguistic]

The Sensitive Psychopath

Gently,

Go easy on me,

Remember this

Kind of delicacy

Only unfolds

For your secrets.

If I ask you

To ignore my creases

We can both buy in

That I mean this

Believe that I haven’t

Folded myself

Into 1000 origami

Cranes for nothing

More than to be

Unfolded again

I have moulded

Myself with

Manipulation

But please dear

Boy,

Be gentle with me.

Let me see

The lines in your hands

See what cuts

The skin

And who has seeped in

Then

Let me reap the harvesting.

Let me dig up seeds

That make you leave

I’ll cry sensitive soul

And deny

The wolf underneath

It is even empathy?

Am I just upset by

Losing the battle?

Am I only wounded

When I’m wet and prone

To crumple?

Still, even after

I can tuck myself

Under your waistband

And wait for the long

surrender.

And still,

I will ask you

To be tender.

See I’m dog eared

And torn up

And lost in the

Bottom of a pocket

Even though

I have designed this

I picked the print

Of my skin

And cut myself

Into shape.

Placed myself into

Hands that

Will never understand

The instruction book

In braille

Across my cheek.

I think I sold my

Soul

For the perpetual

Taste of something sweet

For the constant

To-ing and flattening

Claimed damsel

While solo hunting

Sensitive psychopath

Fickle fool

Begging to be bent again

With one foot out the door

I should apologise

When I’m folded

My edges are so

Sharp

I know why

I’m not allowed under

The skin.

The points will

Prickle like

A fishbone caught

In every vein.

We both know that’s

What danger feels like

Still isn’t

It nice to dance

With the devil’s wife?

The one who

Says she is

No thicker

Than a page of the bible

So delicate,

I can do the impossible

I can be folded

In half more than seven

And this is because

I have thrown myself

Out of heaven

Just to feel

Hands better.

Even so,

Be gentle

We both playing

With fire and

I’m quick to go off.

I am the designer,

The judge

And the perpetrator

Of my own

Deep pressed lines

But this seems to

Guarantee you crossing

yours.

Sensitive psychopath

Fickle fool

Wine stained and

Mislaid

[linolinguistic]

Day Twelve

Now is the hard part

Where panic settles 

To boredom in the 

Shape of your

Shadow on the couch

No longing crouching like a tiger

More floating on a sea

Of insecurity 

2D faces are

Poor replacements for 

Seeing their freckles 

Up close

And I think that 

It’s these tiny dots 

I miss most

These little gifts 

From the sun

Kissed of unique 

U.V fun.

But you need the 

right light to see them

And a blue screen,

Too bright

Washes out 

The colour fast fabric

Of love to a dull 

Habit of waking up

On a rainy morning

It’s all grey. 

And I’m tired of 

Trudging this 

Solemn parade 

Held apart six feet

To the commemoration 

Of a changing society 

That is stuck 

Between the swings 

Of the pendulum

I guess I’m tired of 

Wondering what’s to come. 

[linolinguistic]

Secret Stories of Men

Christian/Chris

Age: 21 

Profession: Bicycle repairman

You and six others are huddled around a small stone circular tap. It hasn’t worked for years. One of the circle is grinding the weed while the Brazilian man to his right is watching and holding the small glass bong. You are watching everyone huddled like they’re there for fucking communion or something. The two English girls in the corner keep looking over their shoulders but to be fair they are already pretty high. Paranoia is inevitable. 

The weed is ground and Jack takes the first hit. He kneels behind the octagonal base. 

‘Let us pray,’ you say. 

Everyone laughs. Your best mate Simmo is a little too loud and everyone braces and looks around. Each three minutes the group steps to the left, kneels and then continues mumbling to the right until all seven are satisfied. Twice. The English girls keep looking over their shoulder but the rougher of the two grabs your eye in the light. There are pieces of her pony tail falling out and blowing around her face and she is wearing a dirty flannelette. 

There is enough in the tin and Jack shrugs and says, ‘Fuck it, fate seems to think it’s fair.’

When he finishes you all cross the road against the drizzle and wind. The two girls are speaking in quiet shoves in front of you. You shrug your jacket and take a sharp inhale. You spit. It lands in front of the Brazilian who only shrugs and smiles. He can’t speak English. He speaks dope though. He is the lucky supplier of your current rag tab back packing band. He nods at the English girl in front of you and winks.

You shake your head. Simon had been fucking her in Brussels so it was best not to bring any bullshit on their meet up in London. Although, he’d been fucking girls in every hostel bathroom since Budapest. She looks back. There’s not even a name to overhear but she knows. She smiles and her step slows. She pulls her tobacco pouch out and stops to roll. 

She’s waiting for you. You change your step, waiting until she is ready to lick the glue and fall into stride at the same time. 

‘I know we spent like four days like hanging out in Brussels, I don’t really know anything about you.’

You shrug. ‘Open book.’

‘Pity.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Yeah, pity. That’s boring.’

You shrug your eyebrows.

‘You don’t really like me do you?’

She is baiting you. You know it. She knows it. She knows you both know and all the fractured mirrored reflections. She looks up at you. She knows too that this is chum. Her eyes are a swill of crushed Autumn and toffee. 

‘Nah man, I’m just cruising.’

‘I love books but do you know the worst thing about them?’

‘Nah.’  You say seeing the hostel at the end of the road. 

‘Not a big reader.’

‘Nah.’

‘Wasn’t a question but considering you were so interested I’ll tell you.’

She talks a lot. Slowly though and with an occasional step to kick home her subtle point. 

‘Alright, go on,’ you say exhaling but it is too heavy not to be sarcasm. 

‘They’re deceptive,’

She looks at you with a straight stern face. 

It turns quickly to a smile.

‘Come over here for a second,’  you tell her. 

She walks back the three steps you’d stopped and two to the left beside the stone wall. She was a knight falling into line against the wall. 

‘I don’t like secrets.’

‘Neither do I really. Or Simon really.’

‘What?’

‘We were high, it was New Years, Air BnB over a hostel.’ She shifts her head from one side to the other, ‘What do you like?’

‘Not fucking my friends over.’

‘Well then, don’t.’

She leans in and kisses your neck.

‘Do you like this?’

Fuck it you think.

You take her hand and walk her back to the small alley beside the hostel and it’s neighbouring apartment. 

[linolinguistic]

Secret Stories of Men

Mariem 

Age: 27

Profession: Lifeguard

Obviously I could say that I didn’t mean to do it. One of the women would claim it fate but the other, if she found out, would only blame me. I could blame the end of Summer, the distance, the risk of Cecile’s wedding ring, my own weakness, her low t shirts. It didn’t happen like that though. 

I worked at the camp for three months over the Summer and eventually ended up dropping in on her every day at reception. There was a quicker way out from my room but I always had time. We would flirt. She would tell me that some psychology like flirtation was just healthy energy between people and I would tell her that I liked the health in her smile. She was obvious sometimes but usually the conversations were kept to small talk. Kept short too because the difference in the room once her husband walked in was always very clear. If she was laughing, she stopped and dropped her smile to purse her lips on the right hand side of her mouth. She still came to the beach of an afternoon and lay in the sun just too far away from my post to really see the crease in her ass. I could see her curves though, resistant to time with hard work. 

I stopped going by after work without my shirt for a while after one night her husband was drunk in the bar and told me that all the women here like city boys for a while but they know that we always leave. True, I only had three days left and Eloise at home anyway. Eloise. I really didn’t want to go back to that tiny apartment in Paris or to her and her tiny shoes and neat tea cups. Not when I had Cecile’s neat cups every morning but he has right. I was leaving.

She must have smelt it on my skin. I had thought of her in the short push button shower I had on my second last morning. I kept pushing that button of cold water with my left and sliding my hand tight until someone opened the door to piss. She must have because when she saw me she looked like she was going to eat me. Cecile was leant back, arms softly on each rest and smiling up at me. Her lips puckered in their smile. Her white teeth grazed her bottom lip and I nodded towards the door I just walked through. 

She didn’t say anything while we walked because she already knew my room. She was assertive like that, had a way out and a way in. I saw the clock across her undressing back as she walked from the door. Work and thinking of an excuse would have to wait. She was assertive between our sheets and clung to my body like a panting cat. Even while she rode me, she kept contact by keeping my down. She pushed harder on my chest than a woman of her size normally could have. 

She was remarkably delicate that afternoon. I walked in sun burnt and excited to see what kind of game we were going to play now. How would it change? It disappeared when I walked in and saw her kissing the cheek of her four year old, blonde son. He’d obviously been crying but we was only breathing frantically as she talked softly in front of his face wiping his cheeks. I made sure to close the door quietly and slipped around her, the son and her very guilty looking daughter through the door. None of them noticed me. It’s basically like it never happened. 

[linolinguistic]

Secret Stories of Men

Aaron

Age: 29

Profession: Unkown

 Wednesday night isn’t really the night for tinder but tough times lead to tough solutions. Or at least smart solutions in a modern man’s world. Aaron had been swiping for enough months and had worked out the algorithm where the more girls you match and talk with, the more your profile would be shown. It wasn’t his proudest three minutes when his finger twitched like the second hand of a clock over the screen to the right. It was strategy. Again and again he went right. He didn’t even notice the curly haired girl with deceptive eyes or the blonde Asian with an unmoving mouth or the two women who appeared in each other’s first photo. He wasn’t even really watching, he had one eye watching he didn’t super like anyone and the other on his computer screen. Tinder and porn go hand in hand. There is a chance at both human interaction, an orgasm and isolation. 

Aaron began typing the familiar search criteria with his left hand when his right vibrated. 

‘Top, bottom or switch?’

That was a pretty provocative opener. 

‘Usually you girls would insist on a drink before these sorts of questions.’

‘Eh, I’m tired of receiving trash first so why not throw a curve ball?’

‘Caught me off guard, pretty specific ball to throw.’

‘Are you scared of answering?’

‘No-one’s ever asked.’

‘Not an answer.’

Aaron checked her profile. She was a tall thin girl with a cropped bob, mismatched black line tattoos and a stud through her bottom lip. Her bio only said Traveller with a German flag. She’d probably met switch men before.

‘Usually, people need to give some information to get some.’

‘An exchange?’

‘It’s only fair.’

‘You need to ask a different question though.’

While Aaron thought of something to ask his fingers grazed across the computer keyboard. Each letter had been built into their muscle memory from when he was a teenager. 

He thought of something to ask and returned his attention to the blue light. 

‘Have you ever strangled someone?’

‘Yes’

‘But they didn’t pass out.’

People on the internet are so confident with their veil of semi anonymity. 

‘And now, your question?'

‘Switch.’

Aaron selected a clip. 

‘That wasn’t hard was it?’

[linolinguistic]

Miguel & Jena

Jena spotted Miguel above the rest of the traveller’s weary heads before he saw her. He looked crisp and clean in his plain t shirt and nearly identical to the last time she saw him. Without looking at her he had the same tight lipped, sharp cheeked smile as when he looked down at her in the silent Valencian streets six months ago. He had tidied the shorn parts of his hair and the stubble across his jaw but his skin was the same colour as melted cane sugar. 

When Miguel got closer he finally noticed her, stood still in the middle of the flow beaming and bright eyed to see him. Miguel’s tight stare got smaller as the smile got bigger. He took three long strides towards her short body and puller her in. His long arms had her so tight she could feel every muscle tense and smell all of the scents of France and freedom. 

The people in suits and rags pass around them quickly without noticing their six months colliding under the steel arch of the station roof. How could they have the time to when they kept the streets alive in colour? The streets, although relatively mundane compared with Europe, were beautiful in their pastel facades and bold primary fixings. It’s wasn’t even a long walk to the Air BnB but they stopped at the red cross walks to push their faces closer, daring each other be the first to surrender their lips. They had started like this, dancing around each other’s lust in foreign streets and after this long each had some patience to flex. Their electricity charged the light to green just before lightning struck and they made it home full clothed but still burning. 

Miguel dumped his bag in the corner of the room, opened the window to the courtyard below and lit a joint already rolled in his pocket. The tall buildings didn’t allow much light to get through but he looked content in any light. Jena was still burning slowly. Even her upbringing couldn’t have prepared her for the end of the South American summer, let alone as well as Miguel. 

She cooled off with small talk, asking the questions she should already know if they weren’t usually busy talking about the real parts of their lives. It was hard to be serious about menial details of his trip when his smile would wrap around her mouth. 

He told her to, ‘Come here.’

Jena did and stepped one leg on either side of his.

‘Yes?’ She asked. 

‘It has been too long.’

His hands gripped her face tightly but his accent dripped down as the antidote to too much. From that close she could see the tiny freckles under his tan and the difference between the colour of his dark irises and the pupil. 

‘We have time now,’ Jena said and rubbed her cheek against his. 

‘Should we take a walk and see the city?’ Miguel asked slowly. 

‘There will be time for that later.’

She grazed her lips across his as she spoke and her hands across his shoulders. 

‘Okay, later then.’

His hand moved to the back of her head and pushed their foreheads together.

[linolinguistic]

Day Six

I daydream

Six wild women 

Are all walking with me

The driveway 

Is now just a highway

Up the clogged veins

Of quarantine 

We are momentum queens

The women are darker 

Than I could ever be

A shadowed reflection 

Of the sun’s bounced off perception

There’s still not enough light for me. 

Days becomes weeks

Seven still tastes like six

But five lingers 

Between my teeth

I bite off more than

I need to chew

I gnaw the four walls

And there’s no getting through

[linolinguistic]

Spain

We were the only people outside. Not that I could see very far. The winding narrow streets of Valencia don’t have a long-distance of visibility around their corners. The city had been locked down for a day and being outside for that cigarette and warm beer felt criminal. I felt like a teenager sneaking out to meet the older boy that I liked. One I knew my parents wouldn’t approve of. I was right to be worried, later the police would hassle other people from our hostel and ban them to a small corner under the emergency stairs, but for the moment I was outside. I was outside and I wasn’t alone. 

The Europeans said that they had a warm winter but I was still wearing three layers. Spring was only just peeking through in the day and I was lucky enough to have gotten a little pink with it. This wasn’t the only reason I was pink. It was hard keeping three feet between the French boy and I. In troubled times, and I hate to admit this, it would be nice to have someone bigger than yourself hold you. Instead, he was leaning against the wall and I was walking an imaginary tightrope on the cracks. Uncertainty and waiting can have a way of supercharging our mammal bonding. We found a form of hands off intimacy in sharing secrets and existential questions. We didn’t mention the virus save once when I lamented having to leave Spain and miss Portugal entirely. He remained optimistic at the moment of being here now together. 

At the end of our cigarettes our feet were the first to give away that we didn’t want to go back inside. He asked me what I would find if I had a secret room in my house and while I was thinking a distant echo of clapping blew through our street. There was no point in either of us asking what it was because the clapping and hollering grew closer and over us. Our hands fell in with this Spanish wave of applause and above us people were coming out on their balconies doing the same.

I clapped until my hands were red and the wave had shifted to the next suburb and hopefully across the city. I had been worried about the peace of people locked in but day one held a communal optimism. I didn’t even consider if it this would happen in Australia. The French boy smiled at me and lit another cigarette. He had rolled at it while I stood stuck trying to cling to the edge of a community that was echoing away. 

‘When is your flight?’ He asked.

‘Tomorrow at six,’ I replied finding the tightrope to walk again.

‘You will be home soon.’ 

‘Yeah, if I get through.’ 

‘You will or you will stay in Spain. Either is good.’

Home would be easier and safer. I wanted the flight to be closer and to be cancelled. I wasn’t ready to leave despite knowing it was the better choice. I got stuck in this limbo at the airport when I watched nearly every flight on the board in front of mine be cancelled one after another. The flight left though and I was on it. Now I am home and I am outside, just outside the door, but I am alone. I am alone and this is the test for all of us. When contained, how do we retain a community. Luckily, there is technology and long messages lamenting Spanish nights. 

[linolinguistic]

Secret Stories of Men

Marco

Age: 28

Profession: Chef

‘Alright, you want to ask tough questions?’ She laughed and nudged Marco’s ribs.

‘I only asked if you get along with your dad.’

They were sitting on a park bench at midnight. The party had been a bit of a bust and it was too early to go home. Their intended target was the pub but Marco wanted to roll a cigarette. They had been walking in slow steps holding onto the conversation and the bench wasn’t much of a change of pace. 

‘Yeah and for most girls, that’s a pretty big question.’

Marco scoffed and rolled his eyes.

‘Don’t believe me? If you ever have a daughter, get her to call me when she’s twenty.’

Marco stopped rolling the cigarette.

‘What?’

Marco shook his head. 

‘Sorry, do you have a daughter already?’

He shook his head again, finished rolling the cigarette. He tore off the excess paper in one clean tear. 

‘Nah, it’s not that. I could have but.’

She looked up at him. If there was ever a pair of eyes that could hold this secret without darkening it would be hers. 

‘It was that Argentinian girl I was telling you about. We got together so fast and it was just like a travel thing. And then yeah, she and I weren’t as careful as we should have been. She got pregnant. Neither of us wanted to actually be parents or I think even saw us working together long term but Ummm, she really didn’t want the alternative either.’

‘Oh fuck, that’s a tough spot.’

‘Yeah,’ Marco started to well up. He wasn’t ashamed of crying, he was ashamed of the truth.  ‘But, we went to the city, I spent three days looking after her and she went home.’

‘I’m so sorry. Life’s really complicated and cruel,’ she said and lay her hand on his thigh. It stopped bouncing. 

‘Yeah, it was a while ago now. Sorry for bringing it up,’ Marco said. He swallowed and stopped the tears with will power. 

‘It’s all good, there’s always dark shit in our lives but I suppose it’s who and where we are now.’

Marco looked around. The coastal strip was quiet except the one guy in his thirties still riding back and forth in the bowl at the edge of the park. The streets lights were old like everything in the town but their yellow light appreciated by high eyes. 

‘Sure, it’s where we go now.’

‘And with that, shall we?’

She stood up, curtseyed and waved a hand down the path in the direction of the pub.

‘Yeah, let’s do it.’

Marco lit his cigarette and followed her direction.

‘No more tough questions hey,’ Marco said meeting her side.

‘I didn’t even ask,’ she said and looped her arm through his. 

[linolinguistic]

Day Four

Long distance hope

Tastes burnt

Cage off from the spread 

It hurts

It slips through

And memories turn

From freedom to dirt

And dust on the wind

Too fickle

I seem to give in 

Unpin love

For the ash

Of new beginnings

For lessons in dedication

Still yet to bring out 

My patience 

I can take this

Let the memories

Slip in 

To just paper and ink

Surely okay to sink

Been drifting down 

Since I landed in town

Not quite the same home now

It’s not two bags

No cabs

Grab it and walk 

You rag tag

There wasn’t a day

Where I would only talk 

To myself

I want it back

Stone cobbled streets

And stone apartments streaked 

In mundane timeless histories.

[linolinguistic]

Secret Stories of Men

T.J

Age: 21

Profession: Barista

The drum beat is hypnotic and the beads of sweat on your back are collecting in the same rhythm at the base of your spine. Everyone else is covered in the same sheen and the cotton clothes that did cling to them were also dark with sweat. You keep dancing, watching the line of women in front of you. Their narrow hips snake in identical figure eights and soon yours start to follow suit. They are all beautiful. But powerful women. You’ve only recently found this group of shoeless hipsters but you know the women weren’t the ones for swimming in shallow pools. The song begins to peak and you join in the shouting with a whistle. The girl with blonde dreads in front of you you turns around and shimmies her arms up to her head. She nods and gives a loud howl and turns back around. 

Another song begins but you need a drink. You find your bag under the marquee. This environmentalism is also pretty handy because the water inside your steel bottle is still cold. The steel is warm in your hands as you tip half the litre down your throat. As you put the bottle down, you notice a long brown joint being passed to you.

‘Cheers man,’ you say when you notice it’s Scotty. 

‘No worries brah. You good?’

You shake hands and bump your fists. 

‘Yeah man, just hot.’

You hit the joint for a second time and pass it back.

‘Nah dude, sit on it. I’m already high as fuck.’

You laugh.

‘Cheers,’ you say noticing a deep thought bubbling on Scotty’s forehead.

‘So what’s your deal man?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I see you skating around and hanging out with this crew but I know nothing about you.’

‘I don’t know.’

People have asked before but you’ve never told them. You didn’t even tell the people at home they it was killing you inside. How can you now?

‘I moved here like two months ago. Met Jack at the skate park and just hanging out and working.’

You pass the joint back. It’s been a while since you’ve smoked but today the occasion seems right.

‘Why’d you move?’ Scotty asked inhaling. 

‘I was just in a bad spot where I was. Super unhealthy, mind, body, all of it. I moved here, started skating, eating good food.’ 

‘Oh shit man. Been there. I think everyone here probably has.’ 

You look around. Everyone had the same hue of golden skin and glowed from their organic diets. Naturally smiles stayed on their faces as they jumped and shook around to the music. 

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah, dude. I reckon that’s why we’re all here. Making a change. We had to have a reason to change in the first place.’

‘Yeah, righto. Makes sense.’

Scotty laughs and shoves your elbow. He’s strong for someone who looks almost malnourished. 

‘Or it’s just stoner bullshit. Anyway man, I’m glad you’re here. I’m off to dance.’

He hands you the end of the joint and swings his hips like a cowboy through the people sitting on blankets back to the front where life moved from calm to collective chaos. 

You take another gulp of water, flick the cherry out of the joint and put the roach in your pocket and head back to the dance floor.