She caught one in her hands
calming its delirious fluttering
with the determined cup of her hands.
I watched amazed as she soothed it into submission;
stroking its tiny head,
cooing softly into its face.

She stroked its neck so softly
I was watching it’s eyes half closed
when I heard the crack.
It was only later I saw the swift flick of her wrist.
The other pigeons cawed their indignation
Matching my half open mouth and wide eyes
I was young, too young
Only later at the supermarket aisles bursting with homogenous flesh
did I realise.
She taught me a good death.

I remember you
with white pallour tucked straight into
white sheets
pound
pound
pound
the machine beating your body for you

But I remember you
wrenching yourself from your induced drug stupor
when I entered the room
pound
pound
pound
my heart held every one of your moans
arms and hands and kisses
strong even at the end

There were others but they didn’t count.

Another Matt before Matt. He was 23. I was so much cooler because he was so much older. In his bedroom.

That guy who broke my heart. I won’t name him. He was in love with someone else. It broke me for a long time.

That guy I met at one of the first Summadayze parties. I was pill popping, good looking, bikini wearing back then. Back seat of a car.

Double N. Double life. I own the words but we shared the experience. Only fair to let someone be the person they should have been.

That really good looking guy. I can’t remember his name. We met at Crown Casino and really that says it all. Back of a car outside my house. Just because he was so good-looking and everyone said so. That was enough back then.

That guy that I called my Danish Pastry because I couldn’t remember his name. I knew he was Danish. One night on a beach in Barcelona.

Yet another Matt. We met on the Amalfi Coast at a train station. I can’t remember his surname. Maybe I never got it. Don’t even know how it happened. In a bunk bed in a full hostel room. I didn’t like him that much.

Police man. It was serious. Four years. We were meant to get married or something. We went to France. But he never moved to Melbourne.

The Spanish name for an Indonesian boy living in Sydney. Doomed from the start. A holiday romance that went on and on and was gorgeous and delicious and hurt me in the end.

The Artist. It’s a serious connection but is it serious? What’s the difference between sex and love?

When my brother was born and I had just entered into double digits, I would force my mother to let me eat the semi congealed, textural experiences called Heinz baby food. I loved the chocolate custard.
Chocolate and ice cream became my pre-adolescent food theme. Every summer my father would take me to buy a waffle cone at the Danish ice creamery. It was a hot, freshly made waffle cone, with scoops of vanilla ice cream. It was smothered with melted pink marshmallow. I longed for one every year.

When I became a teenager, my early days of excess were tempered by the terror of fatness. It was bad to be fat. Fat was to be avoided at all costs. Girls were on no carbohydrate diets. I was in a carbohydrate terror. But my secret desires were all bread based. Pasta. Bread. Not just bread. White bread. I would stuff chunks of it into my mouth in secret terrified rebellion.

At university I went from skinny to fat to skinny again. I went through a phase. A food phase. I measured and weighed and counted. Food became mathematics. 5000 kilojoules eaten subtracted by 3000 kilojoules burned. Food became my enemy. There was no comfort.

Later I became a vegetarian. I told people it was for political and environmental reasons. But it was really because I like cows. I started to travel and after so many years, food fed me again. Food became a voyage of discovery. That was my comfort. When I travelled I also collected foods. Some people take photos. I ate. Now apple tea, udon noodles, gozleme, dahl, tortilla, sangria, tagines, lotus root, palm sugar, bisteeya, Chinese dumplings…they are my comfort foods. But I still really like chocolate and ice cream.

In the whooping, hollering chaos
Of a Good Time
It’s the quiet whisper in your ear
As you fall exhausted onto your pillow

In the bored, sweaty, monotony
Of long distance travel
It’s the constant beat of fear
You try to muffle with your headphones

It’s the return you plan your escape from
Over and over again.