99c

It would have been an easy celebration today; but then it's all just a whirrr of pictures and colour and emotions through my fingers when you think of it all. Now distant memories of way back then when carefree was a state of being, and forever raspberry on my lips: 99c gloss from Mr Price, a 3-door car to the Symphony of Fire and some jeans ripped up on the unforgiving tarmac. Laughter our eternal companion. Or was it all those other times: a late night phone call because your electric blue spray-can spilled its guts over the beach in tribute to me. Vanity inflated then. I can only imagine it still, seeing as this was all before MMS evidence became crucial to our existence. Or the sacred spliff on a couch in the middle of who-knows-where was a reason to barricade our shared life with all that deadly silence. Then the giggles in tandum to really nothing. Promises? You always had a knack for those. And the moments of greatest tests when we questioned each other. And you blew it all up in smoke when you shouted my name at the top of your lungs in the crowd. Often. What about that offish day; my birthday? Midnight. A long story for the guardians of the night. An empty suitcase. And a can of my favourite fizz with priceless slice-of-cake simplicity did the trick that engraved itself on this feeble mind. Unstilted.

Sigh.

You would have been worth the celebration today, if you were. I should have said goodbye when you left here. I should have. I wish I said it then. I didn't. I think I'll say it now. Ghosts of the past have no future, don't you know? Mortal presence can't keep up with that much glamour. Thanks, really. This cots getting tiny. You have to go. I can barely breathe. Still, it was fun. And you're gone, and you're here, like you said you'd always be. I know I know, a promise is a promise. But please, just go.