Finding Eden

In the beginning, there’s the sun rising over the horizon, splashing gold that sets fires in the puddles that line the roadside. The car’s wheels crunch slowly over gravel while someone complains about the pace: we’re too close to the car in front, too far away from the end of our journey that serves as both finale and beginning.
I tune them out, and you and I share one of our little smiles. 

I sing along to the radio in an anxious hum, a hallmark of fighting the urge to squeeze my eyes closed, let someone else take the wheel while throwing my hands up and screaming I’ve had enough. My palms sweat, skin melting into leather with a dissonant sizzle as my fingers twitch to adjust the AC I know is broken. I want to say something to apologise for the heat, for my nerves, for this shaky beginning, but they dry on my tongue before I can fathom them.

 

When the world opens up in front of us, we’re three toilet breaks and innumerable red lights away from home. This town is sleepy, a seafront solace that glimmers in the mid-May heat. We’re not comfortable here, not calmed by the shops we recognise, nor by the aged townhouse-turned-hotel room we drop our belongings into. But it’s our place, for a moment. For a brief snap of time where you and I will live until we become something new together; a ritual we hadn’t realised we’d been waiting for until we find ourselves at its edge, almost falling into the culmination of every white noise thought we’d had before we even knew each other. Today has been brewing since we were children with the whole world at our fingertips, finding ourselves in the same web of fate that we used to find each other.

This thing is almost mundane in the familiarity of having done it before, yet alive with the knowledge that we’ve never done this. Not exactly this.

 

We’re not the first ever, but we’re the first of many. One hand gripping metal, I’m holding my phone above my head until my arms ache, ears swirling with static that feels like it’s being ripped from my lungs. I’m not to know it’ll be ten minutes before I can drop my hands, so I let the blood flow out of my arms and flood my chest as my fingers tremble, lights flashing in my eyes like a divine signal, a glaring reminder of this being the last time I can tell anyone that I haven’t done this.

And then, with a scream, it begins.

 

And then, with a triumphant cry, it ends.

Somewhere between those two bookends of time, there’s laughter. Ours. Theirs. Yours. There’s moments where the words don’t feel loud enough even as they’re tearing my throat apart, chunks of me splattering onto the floor. Let it stay there, may it embed itself and plant something new, something with bite. My own teeth are in my palm, and I want to throw them like confetti roses at their feet, screaming thank you, for my life, thank you.

But I don’t. They stay clutched in my hand; a smile I can feel through my skin, a pinch that reminds me of the lights even as they fade.

 

We get lost on the way back to the car. We’re tired, gripping each other for strength with each heavy footstep upwards, downwards, back into those leather seats, now cooled by the icy glare of the moon.

The drive back to our not-home is silent, grass brushing against the side of the car like a whisper as I err to close to the edge of the curb, flinching each time car headlights illuminate my tear-tracked cheeks. I’m leaning forward, squinting through darkness, talking about the traffic like it’s something I care about. I drop the word “tomorrow” like a word on a shopping list, safe in the knowledge that, just this once, tomorrow is promised. It’s a thing we fought for with tears and blood, but it’s not the beginning. The beginning was hours ago, and everything after that is exactly that – it’s after.

In the beginning, there’s the sun rising over the horizon, splashing gold that sets fires in the puddles that line the roadside. The car’s wheels crunch slowly over gravel while someone complains about the pace: we’re too close to the car in front, too far away from the end of our journey that serves as both finale and beginning.
I tune them out, and you and I share one of our little smiles. 

I sing along to the radio in an anxious hum, a hallmark of fighting the urge to squeeze my eyes closed, let someone else take the wheel while throwing my hands up and screaming I’ve had enough. My palms sweat, skin melting into leather with a dissonant sizzle as my fingers twitch to adjust the AC I know is broken. I want to say something to apologise for the heat, for my nerves, for this shaky beginning, but they dry on my tongue before I can fathom them.

 

When the world opens up in front of us, we’re three toilet breaks and innumerable red lights away from home. This town is sleepy, a seafront solace that glimmers in the mid-May heat. We’re not comfortable here, not calmed by the shops we recognise, nor by the aged townhouse-turned-hotel room we drop our belongings into. But it’s our place, for a moment. For a brief snap of time where you and I will live until we become something new together; a ritual we hadn’t realised we’d been waiting for until we find ourselves at its edge, almost falling into the culmination of every white noise thought we’d had before we even knew each other. Today has been brewing since we were children with the whole world at our fingertips, finding ourselves in the same web of fate that we used to find each other.

This thing is almost mundane in the familiarity of having done it before, yet alive with the knowledge that we’ve never done this. Not exactly this.

 

We’re not the first ever, but we’re the first of many. One hand gripping metal, I’m holding my phone above my head until my arms ache, ears swirling with static that feels like it’s being ripped from my lungs. I’m not to know it’ll be ten minutes before I can drop my hands, so I let the blood flow out of my arms and flood my chest as my fingers tremble, lights flashing in my eyes like a divine signal, a glaring reminder of this being the last time I can tell anyone that I haven’t done this.

And then, with a scream, it begins.

 

And then, with a triumphant cry, it ends.

Somewhere between those two bookends of time, there’s laughter. Ours. Theirs. Yours. There’s moments where the words don’t feel loud enough even as they’re tearing my throat apart, chunks of me splattering onto the floor. Let it stay there, may it embed itself and plant something new, something with bite. My own teeth are in my palm, and I want to throw them like confetti roses at their feet, screaming thank you, for my life, thank you.

But I don’t. They stay clutched in my hand; a smile I can feel through my skin, a pinch that reminds me of the lights even as they fade.

 

We get lost on the way back to the car. We’re tired, gripping each other for strength with each heavy footstep upwards, downwards, back into those leather seats, now cooled by the icy glare of the moon.

The drive back to our not-home is silent, grass brushing against the side of the car like a whisper as I err to close to the edge of the curb, flinching each time car headlights illuminate my tear-tracked cheeks. I’m leaning forward, squinting through darkness, talking about the traffic like it’s something I care about. I drop the word “tomorrow” like a word on a shopping list, safe in the knowledge that, just this once, tomorrow is promised. It’s a thing we fought for with tears and blood, but it’s not the beginning. The beginning was hours ago, and everything after that is exactly that – it’s after.

In the beginning, there’s the sun rising over the horizon, splashing gold that sets fires in the puddles that line the roadside. The car’s wheels crunch slowly over gravel while someone complains about the pace: we’re too close to the car in front, too far away from the end of our journey that serves as both finale and beginning.
I tune them out, and you and I share one of our little smiles. 

I sing along to the radio in an anxious hum, a hallmark of fighting the urge to squeeze my eyes closed, let someone else take the wheel while throwing my hands up and screaming I’ve had enough. My palms sweat, skin melting into leather with a dissonant sizzle as my fingers twitch to adjust the AC I know is broken. I want to say something to apologise for the heat, for my nerves, for this shaky beginning, but they dry on my tongue before I can fathom them.

 

When the world opens up in front of us, we’re three toilet breaks and innumerable red lights away from home. This town is sleepy, a seafront solace that glimmers in the mid-May heat. We’re not comfortable here, not calmed by the shops we recognise, nor by the aged townhouse-turned-hotel room we drop our belongings into. But it’s our place, for a moment. For a brief snap of time where you and I will live until we become something new together; a ritual we hadn’t realised we’d been waiting for until we find ourselves at its edge, almost falling into the culmination of every white noise thought we’d had before we even knew each other. Today has been brewing since we were children with the whole world at our fingertips, finding ourselves in the same web of fate that we used to find each other.

This thing is almost mundane in the familiarity of having done it before, yet alive with the knowledge that we’ve never done this. Not exactly this.

 

We’re not the first ever, but we’re the first of many. One hand gripping metal, I’m holding my phone above my head until my arms ache, ears swirling with static that feels like it’s being ripped from my lungs. I’m not to know it’ll be ten minutes before I can drop my hands, so I let the blood flow out of my arms and flood my chest as my fingers tremble, lights flashing in my eyes like a divine signal, a glaring reminder of this being the last time I can tell anyone that I haven’t done this.

And then, with a scream, it begins.

 

And then, with a triumphant cry, it ends.

Somewhere between those two bookends of time, there’s laughter. Ours. Theirs. Yours. There’s moments where the words don’t feel loud enough even as they’re tearing my throat apart, chunks of me splattering onto the floor. Let it stay there, may it embed itself and plant something new, something with bite. My own teeth are in my palm, and I want to throw them like confetti roses at their feet, screaming thank you, for my life, thank you.

But I don’t. They stay clutched in my hand; a smile I can feel through my skin, a pinch that reminds me of the lights even as they fade.

 

We get lost on the way back to the car. We’re tired, gripping each other for strength with each heavy footstep upwards, downwards, back into those leather seats, now cooled by the icy glare of the moon.

The drive back to our not-home is silent, grass brushing against the side of the car like a whisper as I err to close to the edge of the curb, flinching each time car headlights illuminate my tear-tracked cheeks. I’m leaning forward, squinting through darkness, talking about the traffic like it’s something I care about. I drop the word “tomorrow” like a word on a shopping list, safe in the knowledge that, just this once, tomorrow is promised. It’s a thing we fought for with tears and blood, but it’s not the beginning. The beginning was hours ago, and everything after that is exactly that – it’s after.