Hourglass

HOURGLASS
 In memory of John Goddard
 
 The struggle is something that requires us to pay attention to both the whole and the parts, and to be ready because that last grain of sand isn’t the last, but rather, the first, and that hourglass must be turned over because it contains not only today, but yesterday, and yes, you are right . . . tomorrow too.
 —ZAPATISTA SUBCOMANDANTE GALEANO, 
 “Timepieces, the Apocalypse and the Hour of the Small”
 PART ONE 
 
 It was the past.
 
 So you were younger. 
 
 That much I remember.
 
 And it always felt like remembering, long before it ever happened.
 
 It was some time before the telling really began.
 
 Before you told me that your spelling was poor because you had learnt to read too soon.
 
 Before you told me that you liked books about the books you liked more than you liked the books themselves.
 
 Back then, everything mattered.
 
 We watched each other across rooms. 
 
 Wary.
 
 Amateur animals.
 
 Eager to live but new to the craft.
 
 Once, I texted you and told you that sometimes, especially in the mornings, I think that I am God.
 
 You didn’t reply.
 
 I texted again and told you not to worry about it.
 
 And then I texted again and told you that I used to have a keyring on my schoolbag that said I am God, and that was probably why the thought had lingered.
 
 That time you replied and offered to make me a hot drink.
 
 I drank it and stared out of the bedroom window, the outline of the city in the distance.
 
 Another text:
 
 Architecture is the art that works most slowly but most surely on the human soul!
 
 And you replied to that too. 
 
 Because you were extremely kind.
 
 Back then I was not good at sleeping and I disliked drinking outdoors, even during summer.
 
 The year you arrived I had been shrinking myself. 
 
 Eating mostly apples and bran flakes.
 
 I was happy that my clothes fit but less happy that my ankles felt strange and that I couldn’t read because my eyes hurt.
 
 I had no idea you were coming.
 
 There was a girl who wanted to fuck me with a candle, which was fine, and there was a girl who drank half pints of Guinness two at a time, which was also fine.
 
 I was always cold then. But I liked the smell of the city, so I would leave the window open all night and wear a brown scarf to bed.
 
 Whole weeks never happened. But during one that did I spent an entire day drawing a picture of my kettle.
 
 I over-egged the shading and it was ruined.
 
 I convinced myself that stock phrases were fascist and that we all had a duty to unpetrify the language.
 
 I once called a quite good film a denim jacket made of fleece and felt immediately embarrassed.
 
 In the end, things always seem inevitable. 
 
 But I honestly had no idea you were coming.
 
 That year I also spent some time relearning how to do simple maths I was taught in school.
 
 Things seemed considerably harder from a distance.
 
 One day I figured out the volume of a tennis ball that was sitting in the corner of my room and pinned my workings to the fridge.
 
 More often than not, I’d sleep on the sofa.
 
 It was next to the biggest window in the flat so that way I got woken up by the light of the sun and by the sound of the man who handed out free newspapers.
 
 I liked to look at the floor in the kitchen. It was stained in a way that was interesting to me.
 
 Once I thought the stains looked exactly like something in particular, but I forgot what it was and could never recover the image.
 
 The girl who liked 
 I used to have a fish. But it died.
 
 I found it nestled near the drawbridge of the ornamental castle in the corner of the tank.
 
 I took a picture of the dead fish and texted it to the girl who drank half pints of Guinness two at a time.
 
 The fish is dead. But in heroic circumstances. I hope when I die it is also because I am trying to breach the walls of a castle.
 
 I don’t think she replied.
 
 Quite soon after that she told me that she didn’t think she could love me.
 
 We were in my flat when she said it, we had just had sex and her body was curled around mine.
 
 She cried for quite a long time but stopped crying for a second to tell me not to touch her hair.
 
 After she had stopped