i remember the morning - air like the breath of november, sky like the jewels of july. i carried your suitcase. i bought you coffee from a vending machine, in a paper cup with playing cards on the side. you touched my shoulder, to remind me the world wasn't ending, but i heard it sucked into an approaching vacuum. you thought it was the wind through the cracks in the old bus station. i came this far to go back, i thought.

the night before we left, i to turn back halfway, we lay on the same damp mattress and i ripped the disintegrated blankets away from your body, to take a picture with my mind. and we burned candles in the little closet and the light on your skin was your halo and you were all as perfect as i thought you'd be. you always were. you didn't know, but i watched your body until the candles burnt out, till the sun came up, a long time before i fell asleep.

we emptied our room of what had been yours. i watched you fold your shirts. i sat on the bed, ashtray in my lap, pretending to read a book about poisonous vegetation. like you, my beautiful flower. i sit here dying from your kiss.

overhead there was a sudden buzzy burst and it was time. back outside to wait, where i lit a cigarette as you stood in line, held your hand and we were like people going to a concentration camp. we stood without moving and i think i was very cold, because i didn't bring a jacket. we stared into the distance. the bus station was nowhere, smooth white grass and a dirt road through the middle, truck stops and gas stations. i could see the horizon across the parking lot, and your bus clouding the air with its diesel perfume.

the man took your ticket and you stood on the other side of the fence, holding both my hands with strength like truth. 'you're not crying,' you said.

'i only need to cry if i'm never going to see you again.' but when i said it, i knew it was true. my eyes filled up as your bus pulled out. i went inside and bought a coffee for myself, set my backpack beside my feet in a sad lump. i thought about how i'd go home, and it would be empty. empty from now on. my bus came and i curled up with some rude woman's seat in my lap. i cried so hard, then.

It probably means that I've moved to Belize.

Things are nicer in Belize. People wear clean sandals, climb trees as a genuine source of entertainment and probably don't mind country music. There's kayaking, cable TV, free wireless internet, beaches with stone and tall girls that wear skirts and hoodies and like being held in the wind while a dog runs circles around the island.

The house is painted grey and weatherboard, old enough to have seen pirates but young enough to keep the termites out. There's a windmill palm dug into the shaley sand at the front, a light dusting of grit on the dark floorboards from beach feet and an obligatory surf board wedged in a corner like a hand in a jar.

There's a respectful reverence for good people, reserved judgment for bad ones and healthy cats.

Living on a boat is of course optional, but encouraged.

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