This is a story of a girl in a new city.
This is not a love story.
Nor is it a story of achieving any sort of inner clarity.
It is simply a tale of the events that may or may not have occurred one hot Melbourne night.

I awoke this morning in a drunken sweaty haze. My palms are clammy and there are aches and pains where there shouldn’t be. I run my fingers through my hair and slowly begin to open my eyes. The heat wraps itself around me like a sticky second skin. The forecast is for 43 degrees. I look over to my fan as it pushes hot hair around my room. I kick away the pillows on my bed and sit up to face the day. My head throbs from dehydration and my tongue is coated with the bitter after taste of a night where I drank to disconnect. Clothes lay scattered on my bedroom floor. I pick them up one by one and try to piece together how I got home. I find a pair of undies that are covered in sand.

Here is where the flashbacks begin.

Images from the night before appear unwittingly in my minds eye. Images that are as fuzzy and as nostalgic as old Polaroid pictures. Images like puzzle pieces, slotting together to form a blurry timeline from the moment I left the house yesterday afternoon until now. I try to switch it off. I am unsure if I can cope with these still frames of truth on an empty stomach. Relentlessly they come flooding into my mind, whether I want to see them or not.

I stand defeated under a cold shower. I hunch my shoulders and examine my body. On top of the aches and pains are fresh bruises and broken skin. My hands are red raw from gravel rash. The flesh on my knees is cut open and underneath these wounds is fresh red blood. I breathe in the sting as water washes over my punctured skin.

How the fuck did this happen?

I wrap the towel around me and get a shock of a lifetime as I see my reflection. My face….my fucking face! There is a graze from my chin, past my lips, and up to my cheek. It is coloured in an angry red. I am unsure as to whether or not I should laugh or cry. It looks absurd! I look absurd! I examine the damage closer. It’s looks as if I had gotten into a fight with a piece of sandpaper. Correction…several pieces of sand paper, and of the extra coarse variety. I ponder whether or not I will be able to cover it up with makeup. I wonder what my bosses will think. Tears swell up in my eyes but I bite down hard on the need to cry at such absurdity. It’s just some facial gravel rash, you’ll get over it.

I lay back down in front of the fan on my bed. I feel the minute pulses of pain throughout my body as it tries to heal itself. My mind is a mangled mess of a timeline from the night before.

Grassy hills. A cityscape in the distance. A beach littered with a thousand new faces. Smirnoff Blacks. The sound of a new voice. A new laugh. Planes mistaken for stars. A shooting star. Another wish. Another prayer whispered off into the summer air. Midnight swims. Sand in my undies. Swimming in a sea of black. Naked except for my sandy bottoms. Free from inhibition. Recklessness. Actions without consequence. Red bitten lips. Two strangers that kiss. Salty hair. An atmosphere free from responsibility laced the humid air.

Most of this is hit and miss.
Although I know for a fact that there was a kiss.

I listen to the fan as it oscillates. I feel emptied out. It pains me that I can’t remember the finer details of such a night. Was I even myself last night? That part of my personality that rises up every now and then really disturbs me. It is that ruthlessness in my actions that is completely uncharacteristic of my nature. Rarely do I let go and live in the two dimensions. There is always some conscious part of me that is endlessly weighing up situations and anchoring me to something more. I don’t dislike this facet of my personality, but when I wake up bruised and battered with no answers as to why I feel so defeated, I have to question it.

Finding the answers is never easy. They remain tucked away in the moment that was yesterday. Answers to questions I didn’t even think to ask play out in my patchwork memory. Consequence waits patiently to unfold at the right moment. Actions without thought will have their course. I sit still and wait for the answers to fall. I fill my stomach with food but remain entirely unsatisfied. I sit cross legged on a tidy bed, letting the fan cool my sweaty skin. I wonder why I feel so violated when I let someone in. I like my bed empty. I like falling asleep alone. I like it when I never have to use my phone. I like being still as answers rise up during the silent time, when there are no distractions chewing up my time.

I like knowing that I am only mine.

As I said before, this is no love story.
It is simply a story of a girl who woke up with stinging skin.