Moving On

When you moved in next door, I had to scrape myself off the floor. And you’ve been making me spontaneously burst into poetry like that for at least four months now.

Of course, it’s not you. Not really. You stopped smoking. I gathered you got into the habit after leaving me for her, because it’s what she did. Those few times I saw her in person when visiting you on campus, her blowing smoke in my face to cover up her stealing of your heart. However, when I last trawled your eBay purchase history it was full of vaping devices. Looking so alien to me, those shiny contraptions. You were always good with the techy stuff that remains a mystery to me to this day. I still use the speakers you grew out of. Was a long while before I decided they wouldn’t taint every song I poured through them with painful residue of you.

The guy next door smoking on the front step isn’t you. He’s too podgy. The you whose Facebook I stalked with a dummy account before my lazily chosen handle obviously came up as a Person You Might Know and you blocked me…he was embracing student life by foregoing meals to have more student loan to spend on the latest video games. Whereas I couldn’t work for a month after the last ever email you sent me. Being a temp at the time meant no sick pay. No compassionate leave. I spent at least a week in bed reading Birdsong (free, from the library I managed to crawl to) before it began to cure me. From then on I decided I would write books that lifted readers out of their slumps. Kickstart hearts. Or at the very least, provide a papery tray to absorb some of the tears.

The guy who isn’t you always has his head bent, looking at his phone. But he must have bought the hat that you donated to a charity shop when she bought you that new one because I swear it’s the same as the one you casted away. I suspect this contribution to the dusty realm of the Salvation Army’s sorting room was partially inspired by her being so sick of seeing it in so many photos of you and me.

That paunch of his. Such a dad bod. Although it makes sense, given you’d also be getting on for middle aged (I passed my middle age way before you – the diet of booze and social smoking and social recreational drugs and sometimes unsociable recreational drugs, ingested at home in front of Prison Break or Forgetting Sarah Marshall or anything really that drowned out the noise in my head – will have that effect). And thank you Ali for the use of his streaming password. The big screen to distract me from writing out and then deleting messages before sending them to you on the little screen. Thank you to friends far away, but doing all they can for me. Still.

Yes, I know it’s not you, because you have a runner’s build now. My mother is still friends with your mother. She feeds me tidbits on your Life Without Me with a familiar Machiavellian gleam in her eyes (or do I mean schadenfreude? Perhaps I am the one who should have returned to university in later life). Similar to the time when I’d been adrift for six weeks after your cutting of ties and she slipped in that you’d got a tattoo which translated into ‘happiness’. By slipped in I mean sharpened her blade and forced into recesses I returned to when my mind wandered. Fun being asked in an interview what brought me happiness in my everyday life and stuttering politely through answering that when I just wanted to ask you, translated from what, and why, and did it hurt.

I’ve not seen any inky symbols on Him Outdoors yet. Though admittedly I’ve only ever seen him on his doorstep under several layers.

It can’t be you because he’s always standing, even with a wall at a perfect height for sitting on. A statue with a hunchback. A gargoyle. Next door’s landlord should hire another one to stand on the other side of the door. It would really brighten up the street. At Halloween, anyway.

You were always leaning or sitting. I’m still amazed you’re a runner now. It’s like she made you the opposite of what you were. I didn’t understand why she took you and changed everything. I always let you be yourself.

It’s not you because I stood in the spot he stands in one night (had to wait until his light finally went out – at 2am!) and it didn’t smell of you. I know you’ve a thing for Hugo Boss, I’ve seen the grand unboxings on your YouTube channel.

It’s not you because I’ve been through his bins (easy to do and get away with when there are so many hungry foxes screaming down the neighbourhood in the small hours). He gets through a bucket of Ben & Jerry’s a week and you have a lactose intolerance. Unless she changed that about you too?

He likes to buy stuff online as much as you did but you’d never use Amazon, you’ve been boycotting them for years; I’ve seen all the petitions you’ve signed.

It’s not you. And nobody else will do.

Goddammit with the impulsive poetry. If my gothic teen self were here, she’d been cringing right out of her lacy armbands.

I guess his phone must have run out of battery last Wednesday, 20th August. Because he finally looked up.

Definitely not you. I barely registered to him. Maybe if I had been a fully charged phone, or had a cigarette on me. Though I used to always carry a lighter, did you know that? In case I ran into you.

Guess it’s time for me to move house again.

Maybe I’ll get it right next time.

This is my last entry here. You’re going in the box now.