The night before you flew for home we
lay sprawled across my duvet, sweaty
in the antipodean February heat. ‘This
feels like we’re on holiday,’ you said.

And I laughed because it was true,
because those five years that stretch
their arms between us have been a
slow dissipation of what you think

might be able to be; two characters in
a movie you know should get along with
some obvious, unavoidable hurdle in the
middle that takes two hours to resolve.

We’re playing a rom com we’ve both seen
before but neither us are really watching.
You’re texting some cute boy from Otago
and I’m scrolling through my work emails,

wondering. Perhaps if we paid attention
earlier you would have felt like you could
have called me when things were going on
and I could have listened to you across the

sea. Told you things that might make you
feel a little less alone in the world.
Oh well, we’re here now, eating M&Ms for
dinner like true Sunday night friends should.

Our bare legs are dark and lean against the
white of my duvet and the orange mosaic of
my sheets. Your legs have always looked
better than mine but tonight our olive skins

look the same in their respective summer
glows. I can see you in me, but mostly small
bits of me revealing themselves in you, a
gentle coming-of-age-unravelling, one you

watch from afar. And I remember being you,
19, and you remember dreaming of being me,
25. A life and job and set of keys. Me,
sister, older. You, sister, only just becoming.