Sainsburys, Chertsey. 3:30. Friday
Our heads close,
we walk the length of a hundred recounted steps,
our time ghosts frequenting a town we have come to pace and slumber, maybe dance in.
I watch the back of your head and the way the wind cradles it,
the way you deserve a gentle heart and an ever-loving hand,
or something better, far more delirious than I could ever describe.
In the supermarket, basket swinging from chakra wrists, i traipse like a toddler swarmed in
fluorescence and the comfort of two colliding energy fields wringing themselves alive.
You laugh and I want the picture to be taken,
life screenshot, you pondering baked goods while i fish out
a precarious roll with too much cumber and not enough dexterity.
I leave things, like an overbearing mouse
in obvious places, to make you cackle on refrigerated air.
A parsnip on the till, a jar of herbs by the tomatoes. I am a worker’s nightmare
but this memory is sweet-tasting. Candy floss dream.
You make a joke about melons and lemons and I want
the cameras to click and giggle, for someone to turn around
and notice our mingled existence. I hadn’t been happy for long,
not the mouth-aching way, where i forget i’m smiling. the force of myself, the weight of it –
it could all be housed, stowed in our small basket. my ingredients, yours.
how it’s not holding hands. something more profound.
When you walk ahead, I catch myself turning round, nearly shaking rogue customers:
Are you seeing this? Why aren’t you seeing what I see?
Maybe they are. Maybe they look, roll their eyes,
then I wonder if they know how lucky I am to have you be here,
with me, sharing entities, sharing time.
Olivia Burgess is a 17 year old raised and residing in Surrey. She has had a smattering of publishing from chapbooks to IS&T themselves. You can find her at her blog: opblit.wordpress.com