Luna

You think of Luna at the hairdressers. You’re having your hair washed. The air is thick with fragrant chemicals, and the warmth of a nearby hairdryer washes over your feet at intervals. Your neck is resting a bit too high up on the little pad. You’re staring up at the white ceiling with its peppered LED lights, which organise the chaos of stars into linear obedience. It’s not quite Cancún, but it’s enough to bring back the feeling of a bathwater breeze, the sky turned inside out, her hand in yours. 

You think of Luna when you scroll through Twitter. You come across an article about abandoned Olympic venues. You see pictures of the rings lying cracked in empty swimming pools and tree roots stretching unhampered across peeling tracks. She’d sprinted for her county when she was a teen and had won a couple of medals that still hung in her childhood bedroom. She’d pretend to be embarrassed about them, but always bring up her wins after a few glasses of wine. You’d seen pictures of the races: her thighs rippling with muscle, hair scraped back from a sunburnt forehead. 

You think of Luna in Edinburgh. You walk up Victoria Street, past the shop facades in paintbox colours, the tenement windows like a hundred watching eyes. The cobblestones are uneven under your feet, though you’d barely noticed when you walked here six months ago, with her. She’d clutched a polystyrene carton of chips doused with gravy, dripping it all over the street.

Luna

You think of Luna in bed at night, about how losing someone can feel like a robbery. Like a burglar has forced their way in and unpicked all your seams, stolen the thread, leaving you to hold everything together. To contend with the memories that come spilling out, each one sharp as a needle.

You think of Luna all the time.

You think of her again, 

then again, 

again-

and dread the day you stop.