It was November and I was sitting in a skyscraper somewhere
in the south when I met you, a mid afternoon haze
crossing the skyline of the city, hands trembling with nerves.
Running on chocolate in a train carriage, the fear of losing
something I barely knew and an excuse for small talk in a
room with strangers. It was gone in minutes and then I
was doubled over in a bathroom, apprehension lighting
like a speck of a flame with the forethought I could
hardly acknowledge. You tasted like vanilla ice cream
then, saccharine, adrenaline mixed with the acidic paralysis
of loving you like a valentine without any semblance of
certainty. That winter day would have faded into obscurity
without me sitting in that corridor in the cold, my spotty
phone signal holding you just out of my reach, a mirage
vignetted at the edges. I was your polar opposite, like iron
filings magnetised in peaks, stalactites, blown over by
a whisper. Miles apart, because it was always meant to be,
no matter the nightmares that hung like fog over my dreams
for weeks. It could never be so right. You, faceless before I
met you, words on a page in black Courier searching for a
meaning. Living out of a suitcase for you, clothes on a hotel
room floor and a façade of a hospital bed, white sheets and the
smell of us. The smell of you. Tied to me, like a single thread
of gold between our hearts. Twins, a permanent memory of
reciprocal.
Katie Proctor (they/them) is a poet from Yorkshire, England. They write about love, relationships and mental health. Their sophomore collection of poetry A Desire for Disaster is forthcoming this year from Hedgehog Poetry. They are the editor-in-chief of celestite poetry. You can find them on Twitter and Instagram @katiiewrites.