You were summer.

On one of the first hot days we went out. I was minding a friend’s house, a white house on a busy road, stamped with her pastel tastes. And we walked through quaint little streets together, brushing each other’s hands with our fingers. I lay on the couch, you sitting next to me, drinking vodka in sweating glasses, listening to the Go Betweens. You’d never heard them before. You came at me and I knew it would happen and yet I was surprised, and that tiny little stab of your tongue let me know who you were and what you wanted. And I yielded, yielded, yielded. We panted into each other’s mouths. And then you left me to think about it overnight. I tossed and turned and touched my bruised lips in a barely used bed all night. And the next night I yielded even more, despite knowing it wasn't right.

All of the heat of this long drawn out season I was giddy with the apple tartness, the alcohol bitterness of the fact that you were mine and not mine at all, inside me and not anywhere near me.

It’s still hot. But summer is fading. Today, I’m wearing that same summer skirt from that first day. I spent the morning with you, but there was nothing there, and I spoke of someone else whom I’ve been sleeping beside.

We are all dried up.