Kew Gardens

As we played, the city outside got dark

And emerging again into the sphere of luminous square-cut shapes against the black sky felt unreal

In our wildest moments we could be the greatest

Halcyon

’Do you need to be anywhere?’

No.

A halcyon night in the city, when you know where to go

Away from the streets, away from the smell of barley on strangers' breaths

The reflections of the golden bellies of bridges on the black water like still, quiet netherworlds

A glimpse into a reality so unlike ours and yet attainable, only here in the immovable shade

Voices down the pathway, and we pick up our pace

Through gates and wet grass, over lonely gushing sprinklers and deeper into the murk of the cobalt night

Finally we arrive at the fragrant garden of roses of all variety; fat, in full blossom, rapidly losing their scent in the aftermath of summer

We push our faces in them, greedy for the last of their perfume

This is good here, I think, alone and safe and rare 

Lover, where do you live?

I never did understand boys. Their honest bare legs in the summer, tense like bowstrings, covered in light fuzz like they were still children, would always be. Their eyes chrome and uneven in the sun, flitting from one target to the next; careless.

Their bodies flat but with edges quick to sharpen; the jutty bump on their neck making them birdlike, predatory, and the veins on their hands running too close to the surface. Everything that was weak in them stuck out of their bodies as if on offer for attack. They were so compact and still so vulnerable. Maybe that is why I found them so scary.

And yet, I felt a likeness... The dirty fingernails from digging ditches in the sandbox, wondrous of the damp and cool layer that hid beneath the delicate grains exposed to the sun, burying our hands deep into it to revel in the sensation. Knees scratched and forever scarred by branches... But they never liked me for it; no matter how many freckles I grew on my arms, no matter how sticky I got running through the woods, no matter how hard or fast I could do things. And I could never understand why.