Dearest Durham

Anna Johns, Eden Ward and Creative Writing Editor, Theo Mudhir, dwell on Durham

All of a sudden July has reared its head, sneaking in, obtruding into the room where we sit silently on the two sofas. The seats have sagged under the weight of endless nights doubled over in laughter, darkened with the fumes of exuberance floating through this barely functional student home. Here we all are at the end of it, still beside one another, the living room floor has disappeared under boxes of our belongings, our clothes, our books, our notes, the photos have come down from the wall, flecks of paint have come down with it and we run concerned fingers over its jagged edges. It seems such a flippant concern in the background of what we really face, tomorrow we will go to sleep far-flung across the country, without weary goodnights in the living room, we will see each other only in the holidays, fleeting co ees in London, maybe at a wedding. The people who have punctuated slow mornings, nights of reckless hedonism, all in the house in which we watched the last of our youth fade will suddenly join the waiting list for a gap in the calendar. I can already imagine the memories losing vibrancy over time, I can foresee a phone call and we are straining to remember “God was that Jimmy’s or Klute or…”. I think for a moment this all felt unending, as though we were invincible, as though these friends were an extension of ourselves, manifestations of all our warmest moments. We are still sitting, no one knows what to say. We will flip through the TV channels, laugh when someone trips over the boxes as if they aren’t a blinding omen to the death of these days. The cat we have fed every morning sni s tip of my finger and rubs her cheek against it, purring, not knowing this room will soon lose our scent. I look to my dearest friends and I know Durham will always and forever be our city.

Theo Mudhir

Anna H and I move into our new flat on Sutton Street

It was as if we were eight again

Arguing about who got to be fake mum and fake dad to our fake son and fake daughter

Frying up fisher price plastic sweetcorn

On a garish primary coloured stove. Except this time it was just the shelves,

Groaning under chickpeas and nutritional yeast and other vegan nonsense. And no microwave. Freedom is not as it was advertised: I skip school; wait longingly for the scolding from my mother I lie on the floor, and I can stay there. All I do each day is get older, make jigsaws from piles of leases and lecture notes, Use anti-aging cream at twenty-one to hide the evidence worry about my skin dripping and folding, worry they’ll find out my cells have been dying, worry how this time last year I was twenty. I have a conversation with the landlord, briefly. I am not the lead tenant, I explain. Then put the new soap in the bathroom. Sweaty and singing To myself about things I never did.

Anna Johns

Boat Trip

Over the summer’sbridge, flies descend in some heavy storm. Clouds of sprites buzzing against a June sunset. The sky and her patterns pinch at my neck The sting is sweet, my cheeks ache. The world turns and you are my mirror. You are my mirror and nothing matters. Nothing, except how the ivy swarms up the riverbank, how laughter sits heavy on my chest. how her eyelashes lie against flashes of colour rose tinted cheeks river hued irises. I lean my head back catch the kisses thrown from the bridge I know this place so well. This place barely knows me at all.

travel@palatinate.org.uk