by Laura Elizabeth Colledge

She sails down Charlotte Street, textbook curls bouncing to the beat of tasteful heels

as they click

                        click

                                    click

                                                on the pavement

My own matted waves stick to the nape of my neck as I stumble along behind

            fraying converse laces catching between the cracks

*

She practices yoga at six, has written two thousand eloquent words by eight, tapping

at the keyboard with manicured nails

not chewed between anxious lips

She is never sorry to bother you or if you don’t mind

but I Am Here, Take My Lead

She wears matching silken pyjamas and lipstick that never clings

to her two front teeth

She doesn’t gulp down hushed sobs in the end toilet cubicle

at the office

                        but can taste the difference between Pinot noir and Malbec

                                    knows how to make cheese soufflé

                                                cites Aristotle in her sleep

She wouldn’t lie on the dusty carpet, staring at the corner of the room where the paper has peeled away from the wall,                          

She makes decisions with the snap of a finger, the tick of the clock, the blink of a steely eye

*

She is beyond the mirrored pane when I scrunch my eyes and peer through the blur

I stretch out my palm and almost graze

                                                her soft pink cheeks, always rosy

            never flushed

She is me

but I never her