In preparation for the launch of our second zine this summer, a literary treat courtesy of young writer Kendall Atcliffe.

- - -

Soft light’s a bitch, because I know it means I’m waking up at Maria’s place again. You know what it’s like, when you wake up but don’t open your eyes, and realise you aren’t in Kansas anymore? (In this metaphor, Kansas is your own bed)

You’re trapped there, vision suspended in swirling colours and blackness, floating in your little world of sheets and pillows, certain there’s a world beyond your eyelids and totally unaware of what it is. That’s the great thing about waking up and not knowing where you are or who she is. You have those few seconds – I’ve stretched them out to almost a minute before – where it’s all potentiality. I try not to imagine where I am as being too awesome, because it’s only something truly special (studio apartment with Monet prints on the wall and flatpanel B&O A/V equipment, hotel room with huge bay window view of skyscrapers, empty white minimalist show-flat with more than one girl) every once in a while. If I imagined it was a place like that, and it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be able to shake the sense of failure for the next week.

My name’s Irwin, by the way, pleased to meet you.

But you have to open your eyes before the memory rush, when it all comes flooding back, and various cringe-moments or dancefloor mistakes start to ruin your buzz. When you’re in the middle of a moment like that, you have to force it to an end, or else it’ll fizzle out. Better a bang than a whimper. (As the actress said to the bishop)

Eyelids are only so good at shutting out light, though, which is why I always know when I wake up in a soft, white-golden glow, that the moment’s been denied. I can’t stop my skin from checking the texture of the sheets, my nose from detecting the blend of her perfume, her floor cleaner and just… her, and my tongue from tasting the hangover-mouth that comes from drinking enough alcohol for she and I to have conversed at all. My senses won’t wait. They’ve got a casefile a foot wide proving the girl in this bed next to me is Maria before I’ve opened my eyes.

Son of a bitch.

I’m a leaver, if that’s a word; leaving is what I do. I left my hometown, I left my one true love, I left Titanic halfway through; I left my ambition behind when I embarked on this stupid mission to get rich. I left one girl to her own devices as she got down to her underwear because I realised she looked like Liam Neeson (an extremely pretty Liam Neeson, but Liam Neeson nonetheless). I used to leave my lessons during high school to go to my locker and drink a swig of rum. I left a detailed deconstruction of my friend Steve’s personality written on a toilet wall at my old job. I left a note saying “I quits” on the front door of my last houseshare (I denoting Irwin, I does speak English as a first language). I left before the main course of a date once because Abbi texted me saying the girl didn’t wax. I’m left wing. I’ve left more jackets in more club cloakrooms than I can count. I leave things. I depart. Je departs, or whatever the French would be. But no matter how many times I leave Maria’s damn bed, I always stupid fucking damn shitting balls end up there again.

C’est la vie.