the years are speeding taxis down one-way streets and clipping through bollards and we’ ll still be here yesterday pacing( your soft hand in mine, not getting) over this very same salted concrete, polka-dotted with gum, at the seagulls’ dawn cry, the dawn when your face is projected onto sticky glass of the empty unit( a cavity: a café gutted of its insides). And I can take any path I want but I’ ll be here tomorrow. Tomorrow, to see your lipstick – red like all these Chinese New Year lanterns that wave to us from the naked trees – kissed onto the scenery, every weekday at five thirty on the dot, graffiti on the French patisserie.
And only the Lord knows if we’ re going up or down at the crossroads. Jeans and skirts obscuring the street signs, I can’ t really tell you where we are. Afternoon holding hands with evening, the affair of dusk. A bloody-nosed hoodie slinks by wishing it was dark enough to hide the stains that will darken, if he just gives them enough time. A mother hops out the way, then, spilled from her distracted plastic shopping bag( reusable, to help the environment y’ know) tonight’ s pudding moseys down toward the Mersey for a dip. The wandering flan errs on the side of caution and slips to an illicit alleyway, drawn to the hidden heart of the beast. Sugary treat absorbed into the bloodstream that teems with smoke and memories and LOVE LOVE LOVE OUR VALENTINES DEALS! The hour approacheth when the Elect are all getting the X1 to Chester. Then all is peaceful, and not real at all, because what’ s a city without the people? Slabs of rock? Me, I’ m just going home, and I’ m very tired, always so tired, eyes stained bloodshot, red as cherubim cheeks.
She leaves before I can miss her. She peels away from her window of many colours – UNTIL FEB 20 FOR MEMBERS ONLY DOWNLOAD OUR APP TODAY – and there’ s an asterisk or a smudge of something sinful.
Deeper into the veins of the beast, some bird is squawking about a( different, apparently) hoodie man collapsed on the floor. The ordeal is as far from us as the jewellery store( called Wings or something, I never really took note – you’ re having a laugh if you think I even think about buying proper jewels on a student loan). Now the rooftops are fading to black, and I can see my breath, and besides, it’ s not my place to interfere. It’ s none of ours, I try to believe. My bus is here, thank God, and I fly away on the top deck. A polite woman with a patchwork coat sits next to me, and I’ ve never seen
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