Whoops

I cough in the forty degree heat, dragging out a cold by getting drunk and smoking and not sleeping.

And her leg is hooked over mine and her body is small and warm. And my blood is half vodka, and my hands are in her hair, and I am sinking into some soft dark place. And earlier that night at a dinner party where I am the youngest by forty years a soft spoken gay man is telling me about how he fought for an AIDS memorial in Perth all through the 90s. And I am so hot on my face and throat as he is telling me this. And I am needing like an animal to be out on the street where it is cold and black and empty, away from this champagne, these walls, this melodic clink of forks, these quiet conversations that would be interesting if I could just get enough air into my lungs to reply. Later, though, my hands are in her hair and we watch the flies crawl quietly on my ceiling, and my breathing finally slows.

And a friend the next morning is telling me how she found her underwear, bloody pad attached, on the floor of the common room and she doesn’t remember taking them off and she doesn’t know if anyone saw and she says: “I want to die.”

And this is that liminal space we occupy: removing our bloody underwear, our heads floating to the ceiling when we are supposed to be making polite conversation with family friends, young women and our entwined legs.

And I am stumbling down Stirling Highway. I’m supposed to be finding my friends. I could take a side street and walk forever until I find the ocean and then I could walk into that. I am alone, clean, floating, made of white fire. Mary puts her cold hand on my burning forehead. Says: “drink some water, child.”