Ink & Wine Bottles

We're only a few months into 2016, and a lot has happened. I have two new (twin) nieces, there have been some serious headaches and sore feet due to almost all my friends turning 21, eaten great meals, and been surrounded by my favourite faces. Here's a best of, film edition.

Your arms open and I’m ten again, sitting between my sisters. I’m warm and comfortable and at ease and Home. You wrap your arms around me and I feel how strong you are. How strong you are for me. I feel the weight you carry in the pigment of your skin and the doubt and darkness drift out through your fingertips as I hold you. We are weak. We are love. We are Home. Your hand on my thigh under the table. We fell asleep holding hands more than once. You came to my house and we’d lay on my bed and even when we’d go out it always felt like Home. You did a lot of shit and you hurt me and I hurt you and I’ve pretended to be strong like you are and to move on like you are and to be okay like you are. I’ve been angry at you for months but I’m tired. So tired. I want to stop ignoring my aunty when she asks about you. I want to come to you and to come Home.

It was an ex-boyfriend who first told me of this secret. He said that his aunty had passed away a couple of years before we met and that he often thought he loved her more than his mum. He wore the watch she bought him religiously. ‘The bond between a nephew and an aunty is so special. So special.’ It was one of those things that flits in and out of your mind every now and then, you think about it at odd times, but never when it really should stand out. I have four (and a step-) nephews. Whether I got a glimpse of them an hour after they were born or came into my life at age thirteen, I love them so much. They’re so different. I love watching them grow and become more like their mum or a distant relative, hearing about what they said on Christmas morning or getting a message from them while I’m interstate saying they got a tattoo on their leg and not to tell my sister. They crack me up. Whenever it’s school holidays and I get to take them out for the day and play...

I am quick to get attached and to fall in love. In the blink of an eye! One moment I’ll be talking to you, and the next you’ll lean on the table to write something down and I’ll look at the curve of your back in that shirt and I’m done for! I pour my heart and soul into loving my lover. If it’s unrequited, it’s somewhat more exciting. It seems so dramatic – I cut my fringe, spend a lot of time pouting, drinking coffee. I’ll keep my sunglasses on inside. It feels so French. Some form of unnamed ‘chic’-ness that can only come with one-way street love. If someone asks how you are, just sigh and say your lover’s name, assuming that they understand, even if you’ve just met them. Stare longingly at couples holding hands. You consider taking up smoking. You know it’s a filthy habit, and you hate the smell of smoke (it doesn’t help with your asthma either), but it would help with everyone knowing your pain. Plus, you’ll look so much more like Jane Birkin while tapping the ci...

Yesterday I went to a wedding. When I sat down in the pews, I looked down at the booklet. It had a photo of the almost-husband and wife and with their names printed on the front. I imagined my name on the front. There wasn’t hesitation or a second of consideration when I imagined your name next to mine. It was as though I had been thinking about our future as consistently as I used to (six months – has it really been that long?), and my body had been waiting says to throw your name out again. I imagined you walking down an aisle – white dress, flowers (though I doubt we’d be traditional), probably barefoot. Our vows gentle reminders of continuous love. We wouldn’t be recognised by law (yet), but that wouldn’t bother me. At eleven, some girls would dream about their dream wedding. I never considered what a ring on my left fourth finger would look like until you handed me that secondhand book. The maroon cover stands proudly on my shelf, marking a significant time and a ...

I scroll and I double-tap the photo before realising it’s the back of your head in the photo and it’s you who posted it and is it too late to unlike it? Will you still get the notification? I decide to leave it – decide that I want you to know that I like the back of your head (I still like the rest of you too), despite the unspoken agreement we made not to ‘like’ each other’s photos or status updates or tweets. And I mean, you look so cute and I wanted to like the shit out of that selfie you took last week and comment with like twenty heart eye emojis but then I remembered that agreement we agreed to (I don’t remember agreeing to it), so I keep scrolling and just tell my heart to just chill…… I’ve been staring at the photos I’m not allowed to like and staring at your number trying to figure out what happened and why you didn’t reply two months ago when I asked how you were.