Work Text:
Her shortest skirt still curves around her ankles.
She wears a lot of lace, a lot of red, a lot of flowers.
She sticks out of any grey street you try to place her.
But when she smiles, white skin, white eyes, 'au naturel', God you fall
in love
with her.
She doesn't have the best luck with boys,
or living,
or cancer,
but she has the best taste, the best friends, and the best day-trips:
every day with her is a whole life.
So you love her. You love her. You love her.
Morgeous.
And when people try to hurt her something grows: not anger, more than fear, it's just this black hole eating every good inside to bone.
You're Kieren Walker at the mirror. It's her funeral and you're trying to form a face in the reflection.
You're Jem, pulling off bracelets that scratch into lies; into tears; into hold me, 'I Need Help.'
And then you're Simon dropping a rose onto a rose painted coffin: hers.
A drawing of Amy looking back at you, as you walk back, and Kieren, for the first time in such a long time, shuffles against your arm and shoulder.
He meets your eyes.
You were Philip for a while, but the grief was all consuming. You had to drop
the toy tiger,
breathing broken love poems through your looks and pores, as you left - you had to leave - her graveside in the middle of the night.
Amy is not a person that can be stuck in the ground.
She is conversation that floats.
And introductions,
dead grandparents:
yours?
Who also enjoy the gossip, colour-field films, the fashion, the love affairs, the boy, girl, they, you want to give your heart to.
She is manhandling her tears.
She is witness to her best-dead-friends-forever kissing,
beside a lamppost. But she loves them; and she knows it; and you know it; and they know it; and we'll all love you forever, even if we can't love you back, 'like that.' So she smiles,
and with only an edge to her voice - some life/death secrets un-spilled - she'll clear the air and say: it's all okay. Forever, forever, forever.
'You done good.'
She grins, as Shirley Wilson checks her dosage and corrects her medication. That girl: That woman.
She’ll make you smile at your son. Her hair, her skirts, the unbelievable joy she flaunts into every room.
She likes it when you stand up for what's right, for whatever you believe in.
She might laugh, love and sleep with you if you tell her the truth.
But she doesn't like it when you say: 'embarrassed to be seen with' or 'I'd lose my job.' She might hate you a bit for that, but you
need to learn to grow up.
Amy is the dancing that holds your arm in her own.
Amy is hand, on hand, on hand; you're clasping her hand inside your own.
She is banging on your neighbours doors, trying to find the right one.
She is faking stomach cramps, from toffee apple.
She is crouched over in a tent, with the rain on her face, and a screwdriver held at her back.
She is licking rain. She is feeling cold. She is eating sheep's brains.
She is spinning you round and round, clutching your hands, giggling at your face.
She is saying 'Rage,' and 'loved,' and 'lost,' and 'light.'
She is writing as if she could die tomorrow.