Lily Holloway
Girl Zero
Every year on this day, in the early morning, I look back through the tunnel of time.
The tunnel appears by my bed, a wormhole with walls of every nighttime colour.
Deep purples, the red of a blinking traffic light. They all bleed into each other. Looking
down through the tunnel, I can see four others. 2019 me, 2020 me, 2021 me, 2022 me.
I am the fifth. I am twenty-four now. None of the others look up at me; they don’t know
I am there. We are all looking down towards the end of the wormhole where it opens
onto dark pavement, and there sits girl zero (2018), still drunk, something dripping out
of her that she’s pretending isn’t there. We watch her call an Uber. We watch as she
struggles to stand from where she sits with her bare feet in the wet gutter. I want to hold
girl zero in my arms, brush out the knots in her hair. Sweet thing, it is not your fault.
I want to punch girl zero in her naïve face. This is the moment you don’t ever
recover from, you stupid bitch. I am twenty-four now. We are twenty-four now.
Love
I.
a couple to the right of me are on a first date
he keeps wiping his sweaty hands down his chinos
and rubbing the back of his hairy neck
she, much younger, seems to enjoy his discomfort, tells him,
I love drum and bass though you probably don’t know what that is.
when a pitbull walks past their table with a large green glow-stick
looped around its neck, he bends down to pat it, says softly,
I love dogs. I love all animals, really. Even the ones that can’t love us back.
II.
yesterday my dad told me he has high cholesterol
and the thought of this is fucking me up
today my mum sits across from me at the coffee shop
when the sun hits her face, I can see faint veins
green beneath her yellow undertoned skin
III.
I don’t know if I am feeling what I am meant to be feeling
I feel guilty about the people I have not allowed to love me
IV.
when I get in the uber my big-hatted driver turns around
and says, Shit. You look exactly like my ex-wife, Shannon.
I reply, Is that a good thing? he says, Yes.
She is German and is remarried now.
for the rest of the ride he keeps looking at me in the rearview
and mouthing Wow. only stopping to say,
Our son came into to town last week and didn’t tell me
until his car broke down and he needed help.
when we arrive, he turns around and says,
You are so beautiful.
You are so beautiful, just like my ex-wife.
Lily Holloway is screaming: EaarAAarghhAAhhrgghhh!!!