Getting older
is just a perpetual state of missing:

Alice and drinking cups of tea and gin in her white linen bed.
Lisa and sitting in her coats on her balcony with the fairy lights on.
Nic and negronis on a week night after pho from Left Bank.
Han and our floor covered in magazine cuttings and droplets of rose.
Liv and the sea spray on our faces in the Kapiti waves.
Kate and her outfits and the way she made everything better.
Jayne and her sweet, literary words that knew the exact place to sit.

Work and the way our heels sounded in the Huddart Parker foyer.
The sea and the sky from the balcony of my old, new room.
The Portugal rocks flat like pancakes where we lay.

Midnight’s caramel slice.
KK malay.
Turning the corner and knowing where you are.
People knowing who you are.
Knowing who you are.

“I can’t understand your name sorry - Amber?” asks the dry cleaner while you’re in another world missing.