Louise Spence

We seem to have regressed from friendship to some defensive crab-like state. I look at you and there's that flicker of recognition and a half-smile and we pass by, always in motion on two paths that no longer seem to coincide. There's a space beside me where you used to sit back and you'd kind of hold your hand in your hair like a defence, like maybe you were bored or holding yourself together or maybe the world was giving you a headache. I can kind of feel you behind me as if you're creeping up and don't quite dare catch up, you don't dare, but why? I'm the same person I was and I've always been. And the years that were between us suddenly seem somewhat futile in the face of the future. It's funny, if you think about it. That bitter kind of funny that indicates irony rather than anything that'd be likely to light up your eyes with those smile lines, really. You've changed and maybe despite my stubborn mantra of 'I'm-still-the-same' I might have too but just a little. I've said it so many times and you've said too many things. I don't want to believe heresy because it's so malleable and yet it's the consensus nowadays that we're far apart. You ask me how I am and I'm cold. That's it, there you go, 

yes,

I'm cold.