Chloe by Katie Proctor

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.

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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.