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riding a familiar but new path on my bike, "alexander! my older brother!", i sang to the sun that comes through the trees' ceiling; my younger brother riding alongside me.

***

the floor of the old arndale centre, light dirty squares, donuts you want to make into a wedding cake, clothes made for older bodies, thinking of bookshops and stationers in arcades that i need a student card to reach, the rain hitting the see-through roof of the tunnel - in the nighttime when we're not too young to stay out past seven.

***

walking through the merrion centre, spandau ballet - aching from repetition and filtered through decades-old machinery - booms from the mezzanine balcony of the carpark above me. i feel, as i gingerly hold the corners of a hot sandwich (from the shop with the 60s sign and the beige tiled floor), that i am walking through somebody else's lunch break.