Friendship-Shaped Holiday

Taking a train away from reality. Rucksack packed with straw hat, sun lotion and swimming costume. Familiar lines first, then new views and navigating stations I’ve never been to.
Excellent friends, enduring childhood ones and newer too. Warmth, of the sun and of fun.
The sea sucks us in, sand dunes and shallow shores. Stones, shells and sandcastles that evolve into tunnel-burrowed complexities.
At night, meteors and learning the constellation of Cassiopeia. At night meeting the Moth Man and seeing kittens and silver ‘y’s trapped by his lamp.
Sleeping in and bagels and boxes of wine. Drinking in the Smuggler’s Arms, enjoying the Smuggler’s golden charms. Cobbled streets and a tiny exciting bookshop inspiring us to try box art.
In between, our own Olympics; pebble balancing, long jump, cricket, stone throwing.
Unfamiliar bees and unknown flowers.
A jolting journey home. I am missing the commune, the camaraderie. These people are so important to me, all of whom I see too rarely. Friendship-shaped holes.

Flash: Ice Cream Bitch

She is strawberry and vanilla, like the ice cream she holds. I wonder if she tastes like that. She really is too old to eat ice cream, she uses her cornet coquettishly, looking at me. She can’t get brain freeze; she’s cold to the core already. She thinks she is the winner, licks her lips, gives me a frosted smile. I am her captive but I could snap her and I will, when I can.
   She leans over me, showing a tease of cleavage. I inhale: ice cream and salty skin underneath. A dribble of her ice cream lands on my face. She winks at me and pulls my shackles tighter.