Shampoo girl

the metro station –

a whiff of cherry blossom

and cotton candy

The one forever caught in a frenchfilm-like moment

Forever sitting in a café looking pensive and alluring

Forever doing everything as if contemplating everything she is doing

Forever tucking a wisp of hair behind her ear

Forever with wispy hair, riding a bicycle in streaks of sunlight

Forever in skirts or flimsy dresses

Forever buying flowers

Forever shouting close-up

Forever afterwards murmuring in a sweetly plaintive voice

Forever her apartment, strewn with half-eaten baguettes, chocolate spread, red wine, foreign newspapers, and delectable pieces of art (including a portrait of her painted by a former lover)

Forever artistically inspired glimpses of her breasts

Toujours avec des sous-titres

Forever subtitled

Watercolour Woman

She never worries that her mascara will run.

She cries tears of rainbow.

She dissolves easily, like aspirin

(but she can go straight to your head,

especially when mixed with alcohol).

She appears to be seemingly vague somehow.

She likes stepping into puddles.

She always splashes on perfume.

She has the most charming smudged smile.

She believes that first impressionists last.

The glove girl

An amazing contortionist, the glove girl can often be found curled-up in the glove compartment. She does not wear gloves. Instead, her hands are covered in words: in some parts soft as lambs; in others quite leathery and apparently water-resistant. Around her, anyone can become a palm-reader, an unraveller of mysteries. Her hands are mirrors, maps, pure poetry, a party trick. What she finds extraordinary, though, are naked hands: exposed and vulnerable – the gloveless ones. And only gestures for words! The glove girl reaches out to them. Sometimes she offers them the solace of silk or surgical protection (especially for timid or socially awkward hands). And sometimes, she just tries to hold them (gently) in the skin-whispered words of her own.

The one that got away {slightly self-absorbed, not particularly logical}

The café is not dark enough for the one that got away. She can be spotted. (Like a leopard – a glittering wariness surrounds her; she wears caution like a magic cloak.) She does not understand well-lit cafés. Coffee is shades of dark (only briefly starred with sugar) – it follows that cafés should be dark too. Candle-light dark to reflect her thoughts.

The one that got away wonders if she got her way. She packed things up. She detached strings and left none untied. She closed the door behind her. (Closed, not slammed. It was a nice door: lightgreen wood, reminding of avocado and mint, something you could eat or put on your face, and emerge refreshed either way.) The door she is about to open has red and white stripes. As if saying no entry between the lines. What’s behind door number two? [a stranger music; the sound of rain; the smell of a hidden garden]

When she opens the door, a stranger music greets her. Hello, says the one that got away. The music stops in response. The end of the track. (Is this where she ends up? She got away, however. Notwithstanding.) She sits down: carpeted floor – high maintenance. Why are soft things always high maintenance? She closes her eyes, imagining the sound of rain in the sudden silence.

She dreams of a hidden garden. It contains only the outline of flowers. And their smell. The air is incensed with it! It’s the most beautiful garden she has ever not seen.

Time to go, thinks the one that got away when she opens her eyes. She can never stay too long. Especially in too-soft, highly maintained spaces.

She’ll leave the café soon. As soon as it stops raining. The light disappointed her. (Light sets one up for disappointment. One knows it cannot last. Unlike the insomniac darkness of a night that goes on and on...)

What did she get away from, after all? She was trying to escape her self, like everybody else (except those ones who are still absurdly trying to find theirs). But all she managed to do was to cut herself out, so that now she is here: a paper version, two-dimensional and a little stiff. While somewhere else that smells of roses and rain the one that got her way stands, ephemeral and bright, the outline of a flower.