Go right back. The first and most resilient -that wincing virility of pickled onion on the tongue. 10p a packet at the tuck shop, well worth it, get two [Girls are mingin’]

Vodka – later and too early. The kind that roughly numbs our throats, insensible to the sophisticated grape and trendy gins for years [Leaves for uni up north]

The twang of that band that still strikes a chord despite the knowledge of the Things the Bass Player Did [He dislikes your moods]

Buttercups under the chin [She actually likes this guy in class too, so]

And never leaving a lecture without raising a fist in Breakfast-Club salute [They forgot about me]

Korean New Wave replays in tube window reflections with a punch [He’s happy you’re such a Fun Friend]

The one literary detective. The empathy for alcoholism in cities of rain-greyed stone [No. Not any more.] 

A stubborn weave, that neatness of tweed on redheaded women [She’s absolutely had it with bi girls]

Basalmic dropped in oil, blotting slowly across your mind in difficult times [This isn’t what you think it is]

And now here, to end loneliness, a cursor blinks a cheerful demand:

Tell your potential Matches all your Favourite Things! 

But I sit, untyping.  

Forever wary of the loves my lovers left behind.

 

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About the author: Jess Moody is a Wulfrunian in London, who likes her words and worlds on the weird side. Fiction in Lunate, Reflex, Storgy and Ellipsis.