Should have. Shouldn't have. Twelve months. Fuck.

I never did go.

I thought I would and when I wrote about it I thought it was inevitable.

But.

I didn’t.

We went, in a car, to the darkest festival. People were making jokes.

I was making jokes.

But we all knew what was beneath the veneer.

Those who shared blood and wine, in houses and venues and.

No longer.

Not the same.

An absence.

And, as is the way of such things, there was laughter and there were lots of crying jags and collapsing in the hands of the moment and.

What the fuck are you supposed to do?

When does this feel real?

And why?

I lived away. I sometimes, often, sometimes think back to beaches and swim-up bars and lizards and strange little noises in the night (some coming from me). 

There was an absence then, too.

This feels the same.
But it is not.

Comrades have fallen before.

Lost. 

Forever.

I wasn’t aware enough to understand.

Now I am.

I don’t want to.

My legs wouldn’t take me there. 

I was a mile away; once, twice, I forget.

In twelve months. 

A mile away. 

But they would not move. 

They would not go. 

Would should could whatever.

Another fail. 

A gig.

A festival of belonging. Secret, lost songs reclaimed and rebooted and suited and all the laughter and dancing and drinking and hugging and crying. 

And I.

In bed.

Bronchitis.

Not the first time in the year since he.

Since.

A year.

Fucking hell.

If I go away again will he come back?

If I.

I didn’t go.

He did.

Away I?

He?