Back in LA. Bet you didn't even know I'd gone.

One week later, and London is still strewn across my bookcase; a handbag umbrella, a Tesco's bag, a half-eaten box of Jaffa Cakes, a few pounds in change. There were twenty-nine new books, now twenty have been put away.

London was hard.

Big line-in-the-sand business decisions. Frustration, speculation; too many crossroads to consider with jet lag. The Divine light I was counting on to point the way still hasn't appeared. Uncomfortable dinners with old loves. Seated in stiff chairs, separate and independent, friends without benefits. Stuffy Hampstead is more than a handful of pubs and Flask Walk, but the atmosphere is restrictive, and the only thing that made it feel like home was T. I am looking forward to next year, back to Primrose Hill, and to never having to go any farther than the Chalk Farm station on the Northern Line.

Milky tired, early nights, chest cold. Medicine light bones, eyelids melting closed, dizzy, dizzy, spinning into sleep. and then dreams: Yeah, but I got sick, said the little mouse to the elephant. Yes but I was sick, said the late little spoon that came back from Catalonia with an epic death and slept all weekend.

London was soft.

Like when I was clad in his navy sweater, seated at the breakfast table watching as he made coffee. I rest my chin on one drawn knee, neckline falling over my shoulder. The soundless motion of pushing the chair away from the table. The length of his legs walking around the herringbone floor in cuffed jeans and socks. The length of his legs wrapped around my own, as he watches me come, sweat in his hair, sweat in his narrowed eyes, mouth wet and gasping, knuckles, toes. Resting my chin against his freckled shoulder, facing the window, where coral braids of delicate honeysuckle flow gently between the sunlit slats of the blinds. Long rounds of evening Botticelli. T. and B. finishing the crossword at The Wells, as the evening chills. Legs stretched from Borough Market to The Globe to Soho, for the best burger in town. When he cleans his glasses on his shirttail. Waking up with my love warm and asleep next to me. This is not where I expected to be and I am grateful for it. 

So this is the way Autumn is opening today:

The pockets of my cotton dress are overflowing with wildflowers. I have work tomorrow. There is coffee with steamed milk and cinnamon. No sugar. I've gone full keto, even swearing off sweets and my beloved Sauvignon Blanc. Rereading Anna Karenina. 

Rereading the last four years of blog posts. I write about love and lovers. Impermanent lovers, demanding lovers, struggling lovers. Lovers that made me sag under their weight. Growing pain lovers, run before you walk lovers. All of these titles have at one point belonged to T. I write about him specifically, and there will always be more about him I want to write. I write him into every universe that I create, and in each one he is filled with some kind of light. Love with him has become what it was always meant to be: quiet. It is an inseparable belonging without doubt. It is a peace. It is without conflict which doesn't make good stories. I don’t even want my heart back. He can sink it to the bottom of the ocean so he’ll always know where it is.

He will read this. He will know that every direction I move is toward the precarious cliff of his collarbone. He will remember my teeth, my gentle deep bite like through the wax of honeycomb. Honey will always taste sweet, but the best way to eat it is from his fingers, laughing.