Three o'clock again.

Three in the morning again, and the clock in the kitchen sounds unnaturally loud. Everything's cold and quiet and still I'm jittery, so cold and jittery. I'm making cups and cups and cups of tea. I want to walk barefoot to the park down the street, and lie there, cheeks nuzzling the dry grass, and breathe into the cold black soil, and wake in the chilly dawn covered in leaves. I want to chain-smoke in my knickers on the front porch in the dark. I want to dig my fingers into dirty concrete, and scratch out your name, and etch in mine. I want to drink the rest of that gin in the bathtub.

I want a first kiss.

I want to be alone with you, just a fraction too close, second-guessing myself, not able to breathe right. I want you to feel how cold my cheek is against your warm palm. I want to make some joke, some flippant remark, but I can't, because you're a fraction too close, and I can't quite meet your eyes, and our lips are barely touching now and the air between us feels heavy and compressed. All the blood is in my head. I want to pause, to remember this exact location, because this street corner that I've passed a thousand times or this unfamiliar porch will now be The Place Where. I want to feel how hot your breath is on the curve of my top lip. And when we do kiss, I want us both to realise that the only thing as sweet and poignant and terrible as this first kiss will be the last.

I want to stop being so fucking melodramatic, and remember that kisses and cold dirt don't mean much at all. But I can't, because it's three o'clock in the morning, and there's no cure for yearning until the daylight kicks in.