Pinx – by JEN ELLERSON

Pinx.

 

It was this time last year that we listened to the Black Hours album on repeat, while you strummed this swan on my arm, and you’ll never read this.

 

I can still hear the clip-clop of your dainty heels moving up and down the floorboards, Brighton pebbles. A flock of luminaries and idiot savants dancing behind you, timidly mimicking your every move.

 

That hair, bigger than you. Layers of fluorescent mauves rolled up in gargantuan hats while falling down your porcelain cheeks. A foliage of flamingo, one could crack it open and count the rings. Your infant, fitted black dresses and white collars, miniature limbs and polka-dotted legs. I discovered you as strawberry ice cream, eaten hastily toward brain freeze, topped with quirky sprinkles and sunset cherries.

 

There were the dips and spikes of your scratchy English melody over the sound of tenuous buzzing. You’d rise to frantically pick things up and put them down, while delivering tales that were mundane to you but charming for anyone else. You would do so with an intimidating bullet-proof cool, until you’d cackle it off in rosy sarcasm. Then, a return to your artful needles, the eternity scribe. Luscious swirls, mosaics of vibrant figures, all weaving into an immense mesh of you: the pixie pit-bull of pink.

 

Let’s surmise that Herr [Mr.] Bowie himself came to your abode, and sat patiently on your magenta sofa while you made him coffee, bumbling around talking nonsense. He had to interrupt you to explain his visit.

 

He walked through to the kitchen and fastened the back of your arm. You turned, lost your train of thought and looked into his multi-coloured eyes. “We have to go,” he said, in his faint cockney accent, all that familiar to you. With the grace of the Duke, he took you by the hand and led you to the front door. You fussed, looking to feed little Iggy or find his lead, but David stops to say: “No, not now.” You followed him, stressing out that you’d forget your bubblegum purse, or had to call your mum. But there went the two of you, one in front of the other, sifting warily to the staircase.

 

Perhaps it was more saccharine than that. Your guilty pleasure, for you and me, don’t tell anyone: Ryan followed you home. He stalked you and your pooch as you turned a corner in Wedding, and tried to kiss you goodnight. He brought you hand-picked fuchsia snapdragons and caught you in the doorway. You didn’t mind, you didn’t even call the police. It’s true, his eyes are too close together, and you couldn’t wait to report the news. “Hey girl, do you mind if I sleep here tonight?” Then you innocently spooned into oblivion, a little smirk on your tiny face.

 

Or, wait, I’ve got it. It was Iggy’s namesake, who winked at you from across a bar. You didn’t like it when strangers made advances, and you kindly asked him to put a shirt on, for once. But hey, you humoured him – cracked a joke about peanut butter. You shared more illustrious adventures than he ever could, and his eyes warmed as he flashed his new teeth at you. Iggy bought you more shots than you could handle, and you faded into his shoulder, under the blinking primrose neon.

 

Now I know. It was Bruce. He was your real hero. You were born to run. You heard his voice gravel in another room and with the wide-eyed shock of a schoolgirl you kicked down the door and ran to him. You slammed on your mammoth sunglasses while crashing your loving elbows around his neck. He held you tightly in his wise arms, your mini-feet at a dangle, and you knew he would never drop you. Your heart was sung to fire.

 

This couldn’t have happened the way it did. The last thing I said to you was that I have to come see you soon. I didn’t know I’d be rushing by a box that could never contain you. The not-you. The not-now.

*****