ellen & abbey

two former hell-raisers

[onthetrainhome]

i’m biting my nails, M is saying to me: “L is not your problem anymore. he’s not your boyfriend. you should stop worrying.”

— and i am like someone’s who’s lost her mind. “but i love him!” he’s 7000 kilometres away, drugged up on pills in the dense april heat, and i love him. i’m eating noodles in the dining hall, he’s whispering “i love you” to a phone screen. this past week he’s been ignoring me, but tonight he went to a bar where they were playing our favourite eric clapton song. oh my darling, you are wonderful tonight. he texted just to tell me. he cried. i cried. i didn’t write him back.

i remember L’s smile. i remember how we used to be when i was still at home. we’d be out with our friends, sat in a big group of similarly stoned teenagers, and our first instincts would always be to reach out, grab a hand or a sleeve or an ankle, and start pulling so we could lean against each other. i’ve thought about it myself, but he’s so fucking smart. he’d analyse the physics of it if i asked him to, he’d do the maths, just so he could explain to me the gravity of hearts.

i am not a tidally locked satellite. even now, deep in the southern hemisphere, i’ve managed to keep my heart. there’s warmth here, too, in how my pulse flutters determinedly in my neck. college is all about going up and down stairs. as winter looms, i spend my days sleeping and studying and touching grass. there are two flannels in my room that aren’t mine, curly brown hairs that i keep finding on my pillow. you’d be impressed at how easily two bony people can lay intertwined in a tiny dormitory bed.

A sighs and rolls over, pressing his face against mine. this is how we sleep— cheek to cheek, breathing the same air. i kiss him and feel him smile against my mouth. we got into a fight in the club last night. i cried, he brought me home. we’re nothing if not content in each other’s presence.

— somewhere else, two people fall in love.

[onthetrainhome]

last weekend i landed at a little picnic on irvine beach, so vastly differently and slightly the same to the last beach i visited in hong kong.

the water was cold, the people were different and yet crowds accumulated and numerous, happy dogs were walked. my mind illuminates the image of an empty beach save for two and warm, warm water and hot, hot sand. nasa tshirts and second degree burns. shy awkwardness and stolen blushes.

the weekend before i landed at the tallest cinema in the world, so incredibly the same and somewhat different to the last cinema i visited in hong kong.

the theatre was hot, the people were new and yet the audience amassed widely, attentions were held rapidly. my minds eye visualises a smaller cinema still just as full but with us in it's cold, cold aircon, burrowing in many, many layers. dark curly hair and marvel tshirts. dramatic tears and smells like teen spirit covers.

it's funny the way that old experiences become new and new memories become old. it's not bad and it's not good it just is and thats how this thing called life works.

bleeds like an uncovered blister in new sneakers until the skin cells regenerate and the shoes are so worn in and dirty that there's no evidence of any old wounds, they exist exclusively as your own memories and nowhere else.

maybe i'm overthinking it, but I felt like you might understand. just a little bit. or maybe you will in a few months time and this is just a little odd poem you'll remember then, when your new shoes are old shoes.

[onthetrainhome]

it’s january. we live in the tropics, and spring arrives like a truck. sink full of dishes and sudsy water. pink rubber gloves. (hand in unloveable hand). you were seen up the hill two hours ago on the little map on my phone. what is love? love is a big star. love is doing the dishes. love is a falling whale. love is liam and ana cutting strawberries in the kitchen and bringing them to us on a plate. we were tangled in the spare bed at half past one in the afternoon, the sun shining down the village street. liam held the plate in front of me and i grabbed a handful. like i always do. god, i can never leave anyone untouched. i have to at least try a handful, a mouthful, a monthful. a strand of my hair caught in your waistband. suddenly, i cut my hand in the kitchen sink.

this is not a play on words. you are absurd. you are absurd. you are absurd.

[onthetrainhome]

he sings to me, all fairytale blond hair and eye contact and deep baritone. wonderful tonight, by eric clapton. sunsets and stars, the reservoir at dusk. he kissed me in the kitchen on new years. it’s still not enough.

why isn’t it enough? i’ll fall in love with anyone, cry over everything, fantasise about next to nothing. but this time, somehow, i have to keep searching for that feeling. i keep texting him. i keep seeing him. i keep pulling and pulling at my chest to see if my heart wants to go in this direction or that.

but i'm starting to think that i don’t want to go anywhere at all. halfway down the rockpools there's a stagnant pool. while the stream churns it’s way to the ocean, a thousand mosquitoes lay their eggs in the still green water. wait six months. come summer and the place’ll be swarmed, the sticky air filled with ceaseless buzzing. like a choir, singing an ode to algal blooms.

[onthetrainhome]

i don’t get left out, i leave. i was always the loudest little girl in the room, ruling the monkey bars with fists like stones. listen, i don’t want to be this mean and unaffected, you know? i was always loud and angry and bruised and frightening, but mostly just frightened, just another little girl who wasn’t made to be a daughter.

i’m still her. i was kissing him when you arrived at a little past midnight. my eyes were open and his were closed. i saw you see me, saw the golden glint of your hair, and my eyelids snapped like guillotines. i held your hand in the street later but you watched while he put his hand up my shirt in a dimly lit corner of the bar. you bought my friend two drinks and she got so drunk i had to carry her home and watch as she vomited red into the cool cold porcelain of the upstairs bathroom.

i hate hearts please don’t have one. i got rid of mine three months ago, because it would beat so fast boom boom boom boom so fucking fast and so fucking loud i could never hear anything else. i got sick of hearing it and i was sick of getting it shredded to ribbons, sick of the blood in my teeth. sick of glueing it back together chamber by chamber. i got rid of it. i hate your heart like i hated mine.

last week when we were out together your friend over by the table catcalled me, congratulated you for merely being in my presence. i’m not the loudest or the tallest anymore and i’m definitely not the prettiest but i somehow always find myself sitting in someone’s lap.

i had just come back from being fucked and you didn’t even know. my hands were so cold they were shaking but yours were warm as you passed me the joint, as you stroked the silver butterfly ring on my finger. oh god. oh god. i’m so fucking sorry, okay? i’m sorry. i know i did it on purpose. i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry. i did it on purpose even though you don’t mean anything to me at all.

[onthetrainhome]

teenagers in the back of a car. it’s 17 degrees celsius, all cool wind and dense fog. i’m in the back, cute lucas next to me. liam and ana are in the front with the dog in the middle. robbie’s gone quiet, and coco’s hand is out the sunroof. all six of us haven’t slept and we’re high as kites. it’s new year’s day and i can’t stop smiling.

i think i want to be happy. i think i want to be happy. i think i want to be happy.

thoughts from a road that leads to tai tan

[onthetrainhome]

particles particles, everywhere particles. ellen, don’t you think our friendship was it’s own miracle? the long way home, day in day out, in the pouring rain and humidity. particles particles, everywhere particles. your hand next to mine. hand in unloveable hand.

we spent every summer since we were fourteen half-dead by the pool, me brown and you burnt. bodies and thoughts flaring in the golden sun; for ellen. the hours where the sun hangs barely above our heads; for abbey. letter after letter, written all for each other, all that time hanging over our heads, pressing us into each other, ribcages moulded to the other’s over the course of 13 years spent breathing that SAR polluted air together. in and out. orion’s belt in the middle of a pandemic.

our friendship is so serious, probably more serious than love. this is the crushed heart of friendship, the spilled coffee, the train rides home, the way that you are beyond infatuation, in the same way that i am beyond infatuation. it’s the way i can look straight through you like clear water, how i can see the stones and pebbles and shards of glass at the bottom of your eyes.

you are very very very far away from me right now and i miss you.

[onthetrainhome]

i'll never forget you. they always made fun of us because we looked like siblings, but, unironically, i always thought that our hearts were the same.

today is your golden birthday. nineteen on the 19th. i hope you're having a good day. i hope you're having cake. i hope your older sister called and was nice about it. i hope the hangover isn't too bad.

loving is short, and forgetting is as long as a lifetime. probably longer. we were nine years old kicking the shit out of each other on the football field and even then i wanted to look at you. we went from sandpit squabbles to your hand down my shorts in the span of just a few years, and i still don’t know what to do with that. i thought i wanted it, but i think it was mostly just because you did. it was all too fast for me, too much, how your teeth left marks on something more subliminal than my skin.

and then it was over. that hot, sweaty, heartbreaking summer feels a million years away from where i sit in freezing cold adulthood. we said 'i love you' almost every day, and now i'm never even going to see you again.

happy birthday. don't try to contact me. have a long, fulfilling life, far away from mine.

[onthetrainhome]

i can do it.

i can be numb. i can be nothing. i can wake up in the balmy morning and brush my hair, wash my face, and put the kettle on. i can go to work, and i can wear my apron. i can mix cocktails and wipe tables and take order after order. i can ride the late bus home. i know how.

i can do what i’ve been doing. tinder, on and off, but mostly just boys that i find by the 7-11 or in hazy, neon-lit bars with a drink in my hand. i can go on top. i can go down. i can be pliable, fuckable, fun. it doesn’t make me afraid anymore.

i can be an analogy for water. i can be an analogy for air. i can go for a walk, or i can go for a run. i can go to therapy. i can remember how to breathe.

i can be quiet. i can shut the fuck up. i can be whatever i need to be so that i don’t cry.

[onthetrainhome]

I’ve got no words for anybody anymore.

I’ve got friends, I go to class and I study with B and I laugh with J and I exchange memes with P and I’m happy.

But as soon as my traitorous breath enters my traitorous chest and I step foot into my own four walls I’ve got a rabbits heartbeat and a desolate mind.

I’m blank and static at the same time like when tv channels used to exist and the wrong button had been pressed so nothing plays but there’s just noise, constant, ever-looping noise.

Maybe I don’t exist when nobody’s watching. It’s not enough to just be me for myself, to have just this body to come home to everyday.

I love Scotland and I adore the cafe’s and the weather and the parks and the people. But I’ve got no time or patience because I need to be on top of my game so I sit and study my absolute passion while my brain fuzzes and fuzzes and my gut sinks and sinks and sinks.

I’m happy so why don’t I ever stop worrying?

[onthetrainhome]

i think i can feel myself growing softer

not thin skinned and rib streching like i used to be

but broader and blander and easy and gentle

like its simpler to breathe plain air now

[onthetrainhome]

the way he looked at me was so startling i nearly cried. how couldn’t i, when he immediately came to sit next to me on the bed, with eyes like moons beneath his furrowed brow? he wrapped his big arms around me so i could lean against the sturdy boulder of his chest. i thought he’d leave. i thought he’d put his shirt back on and make an excuse and make his way out of my bedroom, but he moved towards me instead of away.

i don’t know what to do with that. i don’t know what to do with how gently he kissed me, how he kissed me like i might cry. i kissed him back like he might break, and that’s the worst of it. then there was that song, that stupid song that came on shuffle after my regular playlist ran out, falling in love falling in love deeper than i’ve felt it before with you baby. it played as he slid his hand up my shirt and kept playing after he pulled his mouth away from mine to ask how long i had left in hong kong.

he’s not into texting and we’ve got nothing in common but sometimes he snaps me just to tell me about his day. i still sleep around and he still has that girl from school that always sits in his lap, but i swear to god that in my head i do everything right. in my head christmas songs play forever. in my head there are always twice as many stars as usual.

LAST NIGHT I COULD HEAR THE WAVES, december 2021

[onthetrainhome]

i am the greatest illusionist. all i do is fuck and fight and flirt, yet i’ve been fifteen for the past three years. by december i think i’ll be a ghost.

my body lays on the ground next to me, heavy with blood and salt. i can’t let it go, so i drag the bones forward.

[onthetrainhome]

i’d love to dedicate my life to vision boards but unfortunately i don’t know what i want my dream home to look like.

i like purple. i love green. i’m allergic to flowers, and i want a million in every room. rustic modernism, french provincial, art deco, scandinavian minimalist, tofu and altars and total zen.

i never see my dream home in colours. i just see a lit candle, vanilla or maybe cinnamon— something warm and inviting. i see a guitar stand. i see a mirror.

my home is always empty and serene, constantly full of people, dimmed lamps and heavy curtains as the sun fills the living room to the brim with frothy light. i cook a lot. i never cook, i order in. i drape my mattress in billowing batiks. i sleep on the floor. there’s a nest of blankets at the foot of the bed for the cat, or the dog, or the baby.

i don’t have a television. there’s no point since i watch everything on my laptop. i turn on the tv to the financial news. i change it to bondi rescue. i live in sydney and picnic at brontë beach every weekend. i live in melbourne and it’s too damn cold to be by the water. i’ll live in hong kong forever, but not for long.

i’ve got plush carpet you can sink your toes into. i’ve got hardwood floors that go for miles before hitting the skirting board. i’ve got ikea light fixtures hanging from the popcorn ceiling. the bathroom door randomly slams shut and i think it’s a ghost.

i think i’d be happy to build a home anywhere, as long as i’m in the thick of it- alone with my thoughts, companionship always.

[onthetrainhome]

i’ve been sleeping late, but actually i’m waking up earlier and earlier nowadays. the sun rises through my window. it warms my shins beneath my twisted sheets. i don’t leave my room and the air is dull, but actually i bought a few sticks of palo santo, and i’ve been burning them and perfuming everything with their scent. i spent an hour yesterday at slowood looking into all the boxes of dates and nuts and gluten-free soba, imagining a life for myself where i can eat well. my friend is talking about all the pretty green cutlery she bought for when she goes to university, but actually i’d prefer those pink and white hello kitty plates you see at wellcome.

but actually i’m doing good. i saw friends today. i ate mango with shaved ice. the lady who pierced my ears helped me loosen my earrings so now i can wear the gold pair my mother gave me, but actually i’m just waiting for the holes to heal so i can wear the shitty plastic hoops i got on sale at cotton on. but actually not because i’m afraid of infection.

i love life, and i love myself, but actually sometimes i don’t.

but actually everything is probably going to be okay.

[onthetrainhome]

there was a boy and his eyelids were stars.

he was all i knew. i’d never loved anyone before him, and i figured i’d never really love anyone after, because there wouldn’t be an after. i bet all that i had on the boy in the red school uniform, and it was fine, and it was good, because he was my sandbox love affair that would never die.

there was a boy and i thought his eyelids were stars and then he touched me when i told him no and suddenly his tears burned where they landed on my skin. they turned into supernovas that wiped out any landmark of happiness that could’ve stood in my future.

-

there was a girl and she held the world on a silver string.

the air seemed to shimmer around her. she had fuzzy blonde hair on her arms that glowed in the refrigerator light. we spent saturday nights slow dancing in her kitchen, eating ice cream and smoking marlboro purple bursts. i’ll never be more in love, i thought giddily, watching the skin move like satin over her collarbones.

there was a girl and i thought she held the world on the silver string, but the string was a noose and it was tied around my neck. i was fine with the feeling until i heard my lungs scream, and i realised i hadn’t taken a breath in forever. when you love someone you let them go. when you love someone you ask them to let you go.

-

there was a boy. he played tennis.

there’s not much else to be said, other than i was sixteen and too green to know much of anything.

-

there was a boy and his heart sounded like the ocean.

bodysurfing’s fun when you first try it out. you fly across the burning sand and fall headlong into the water. you dive deep but never reach the bottom, the current pulling you up to the surface where the waves bash you around. you’re so disoriented you start laughing, and the salty wind blows through your hair, and the water sends you pummelling back towards the shore. later, you’ll find sand in your shoes, and the gritty feeling will make you smile as you remember the way the hot sun baked you dry once you finally crawled out of the sea to lie in the dunes.

there was a boy and his heart sounded like the ocean when i laid my sleepy face on his chest. i took this as an invitation instead of a warning. when i was small my father told me about the rip, breaking harmlessly onto the sand one moment and holding you hostage the next. there was a boy, and he was like the tide that washes around your feet as you stand in the shallows- sometimes soft, yes, but always dangerous.

-

there was a boy. there was a fig tree. there was a bird. there was a stone cast into a fast-moving river, hardly making a splash before settling into the bottom.

you can’t tell stories about someone you don’t know. you can’t love someone who’s leaving in a month. you can’t love someone who’s leaving in a month.

there was the dawn, and there, in the pink light, was the boy. he threw his heart at me, and it came towards me like the sun.

[onthetrainhome]

... I'm grappling with a sort of odd lucid feeling, awake and aware that he is out drunk somewhere in the flushed spring evening. It's an overwhelming tenderness that has me practically foaming at the mouth, brimming with care. Terrifyingly, this suggests something deeper than seventeen year old infatuation, something that gets murkier than his height and my tits and our natural chemistry. How did he, thirteen and made of pastel corners, manage to emboss his chubby handprint so clearly on my heart all those years ago? He puts his arm around me and suddenly it's February 16th all over again.

I wrote it all down and repeated it back like folklore; tearing through notepads and sketchbooks, scribbling my name and the date at the bottom of each page with a careful hand, terrified of losing track, still tender from my brief dalliance with organ failure and memory loss. Yesterday we slept over at J's house it was a lot of fun he has a dog called Teddy, and X played this song called What You Know, we nearly lost Teddy because we let him off the leash at the playground and J's mum got mad at M hahaha then in the morning we got Subway and I went home and threw up 20/01/18.

All of these were half-addressed to no-one, vacant apartments and an empty box of crayons on the bed. His name cropped up again and again, making it clear that I was thinking of him and his freckles and his eyelashes, drifting around in a happy helpless daze that I pretended had nothing to do with the fact that at every sleepover we would curl up with our arms wrapped tightly around each other, like castaways or much younger children.

“dear february” written late spring, 2021