AT H O ME
The Birthday BY FRANKI BARKER-JOHNSON ILLUSTRATED BY VIKTORIA HRISTOVA
1 It’s ten to ten and he tells me to call. I do, push-pushing Alex and Anna aside to make room for the flat dry grass in winter. He used to behave like summer, hot as hell. We continue to talk and see each other naked but we have already had our fun. I’ve slept with other people but it’s not really cheating if we were on a break for like, an hour. Having bipolar disorder is an excuse, you can’t concentrate on one thing, and that’s fine, we are free, aren’t we? Parks are only for prostitutes or for people to piss in. I’ve never sat in a park or anywhere for long. I know God is watching. He was amused for a while but now his pissed off. It’s over, its over it’s over, now. You have done all you can. You are exactly where you need to be. He doesn’t want to listen to us. The song has sung itself to pigeon shit. Words are scarce and they lie. Real words, don’t you wish you could mean them? Don’t you wish you could feel them as much as you did when you wrote them down? But now they’re gone, as the spoken word, they say, don’t they? Gone, Gone, Gone. There is no such song and if there was I wouldn’t sing it with you. We don’t speak the same – you don’t want me to move my limbs.
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