Scratches on the Back of My Eyelids.

Put your hands in the air, but don't make a sound.

Back the truck up to the loading bay of my emotional-detritus. Swing the doors open; let's load this puppy up. I want to drive out to the top of some cliffs on the coast, put a brick on the pedal and send it over the edge. I'm ready to watch gravity put paid to all of this, and I'm willing to bet you'd hold my hand while we watch it all blow sky-high. Flames burn, but not now. They'll only light up the smiles on our faces. Of this I am sure.

We might need a few trips back and forth, but petrol is mercifully cheap at the moment, and I'd drive all through the night if it meant the job was getting done, and that our conversations had time to take on that old familiarity. I'm not getting carried away, I assure you. I can safely say that I would be, if circumstance hadn't already taught me better than that. There's a crack in my armour that you made and I can't repair it. I don't know that I want to...

But never mind that. These trucks have a lot of space, and we can load up your left-overs too. I'll do all the heavy lifting if you'll tend to my aching back and swollen hands. Even if we've never touched, I know a soft set of hands by the softness of a heart. Without laying a hand on me, the healing has begun. And so goes the fairytale. When it's all said and done, we'll pour some sugar over ice and watch the green liquid turn clear. Tilt back your head and let the Green Fairy take you over; she knows the road to happiness is paved with potholes, but repaired with friendships. You needn't analyse too deeply, my dearests. There is space enough for ambiguity here.

Halfway through the bottle we'll be ready for slumber. Your fingers will have grown too big for the keys, and my mind will be a sea of softly slurred epithets. Even in positivity, swears will get a look in. There's no fun in being watered down. With the trucks at the foot of the cliffs, and us a long way from home, we'll walk the summer off and arrive back in time for the leaves to fall and the wind to start biting again. Ah, bliss. In time for a Northern Hemisphere summer.

When you're afraid of the world, where do you hide?