eighth/first

It was fine to feel my back scritching against the ground. Clothed. Tolerable ... unlike your poor bare knees. That's the advantage of wearing a dress: you don't have to take it all off.

Your patellae were making little dents in the dirt; the stones and pine needles making small dents in your skin. You pointed them out later as if they weren't worth the trade-off.

No, you didn't mean that. I know. I know.

Let's play a game, as we wandered outside. How much time can we waste? I knew I'd have to instigate. I almost always do. People - New Zealanders, especially - are so bloody polite. It really kills me. Especially when it starts leeching into my own manners like some contagious etiquette-borne dis-ease. I hate that tentative feeling curling around my skeleton.

Pull me down, I urged with my wanted telepathy. Bet you won't. Go on. And then, to myself: That's not fair Natalie, to set someone up for failure. And then; My GOD just DO IT just -- ! Stop sitting with safety!

No, you stop, Natalie. Grow. Up.

I played this solo waiting game for an impatient ten minutes: hand on the tree, diligently observing its knots; How was your week? etcetera. Feigning concern that some drunk had followed us (I couldn't really care if they had; good on them).

And then I did the same thing I always do. I acted on my impatience, discipline-less. I followed through with the course of action I'd already decided. Resenting that I'd decided. Oh, pragmatism.

So much safety in the world.

I could have been fourteen again. Nestled in the edges of Ohope sand dunes, leaving human-sized holes in the beach. My hair in the same bobby-pinned coiffe. The alcoholic scene in the background. The pines looming over us in the dark. Only this time, I find myself thinking, eight others behind me. My hand guiding us forward (or backwards, to the ground).

Afterwards, a quick sweep of hand over back of hair. But, half-heartedly. Everyone knows. People aren't stupid ... when it comes to things like that. Thanks and I'll just go over here (alone) and Oh my, I'm bored as fuck now. Dance dance. "Bored as fuck". That's an unfortunate term, isn't it?

With eight behind me (in life, not just in love), having a small part inevitably then wants for it all. The walls and the tinnitus and the horizontal and the glitter; the burning eyes and nose and throat (from various self-afflictions); the handstands up against cars. Leaping over bonfires. The broken mirrors that bring lucky bleeding nails; the lace blouses... The whole frantic chaos of Chevalier-Parkfield-Cross.

Wanting all of this. I looked around. And the world seemed slow. Neutral -- most on two feet, vertical. Drink in hand, compliantly. The music a background -- non-diegetic -- effect. Costumes now redundant (and ridiculous, hilarious).

There's no point in leaving sober when their 'drunk' is your fallow. I'm a fan of stillness, I am. I am. But not of mundanity.

Let's go back to fourteen, my little head beckons. Let's go back to people. Let's go back to worn-out Wellington.