The first time we knew you weren’t of us

The magic people are coming, you said.
You took us outside and pointed at the sky.
You were two, long dark lashes like your dad’s
that brushed your cheeks when you closed your eyes,
your head full of stars and planets, full of song.
Your dad and I were just two broken adults
trying hard not to be our parents.

You had just lined up rocks from the garden
in the door of your dad’s fridge,
his housemate eating a sandwich at the table
trying hard to contain his temper,
your milk float crunching across the lino
on its hard plastic wheels.

Why was I in your dad’s kitchen at the height of summer,
drinking tea with soy milk which I hated?
I was lonely I guess – for you, for him,
for something I couldn’t even have named.
On the way home a cat followed us.
My cat, you said, it knows my name in cat language.

Which house we lived in, I can’t remember,
perhaps we were still in the flat by the ring road,
our elderly neighbours watching out for us.
Peggy bringing you the brown bananas
I couldn’t bring myself to say you hated,

John from downstairs
dragging us into his greenhouse
to show us trays and trays of violets –
the namesake flower of his half-deaf wife
who rarely left their flat.

If there was joy in that small street
I was hard pushed to find it;
but maybe you were the magic,
the speck of starlight we all needed.

Julia Webb is a Neurodivergent writer from a working class background. She is a founding editor of Lighthouse Literary Journal. Her most recent collection, Grey Time, was published by Nine Arches Press in 2025. She lives in Norwich