How many tables now,

have I sat around and listened to people plan their adventures.
When They Leave (soon) and This Time of Life ends (sooner) and The New Part
begins (now?). And I’m sitting, quietly, because my phone has gone off, work
emails at 10am on a Sunday — reality’s already started and I’m not quite
sure when it’s going to end. And I’m not one for jealousy, it’s more awe and
pride instead: you did it, figured things out enough to pack your things and
sell the rest. Nothing else really matters once you leave it all behind.

I’m walking home (work words musing in my head) up the same street
I have been crossing for the last six years, it’s June and the palette of Wellington
is shifting gear as everything wraps grey warmth around itself for the winter.

And everything reminds me of times that came before, when we did them first
and they were all fresh and new, second when conviction came and then all the times
after that. Nothing feels new anymore, even the motorway north or roads that
wrap around the coast. Change, you think, is it making it yourself or staying in
one place and waiting to watch it around you?