We’ll reel in all our lines, these dead limbs tied with sorry bits of string, hanging listless in stagnant ponds, and trade them in for a pair of magic specs trained on one lovely prize that we won’t fight over but instead will lift together, one on each side, and turn our faces towards the cameras and say cheese. I’ll say cheese every day if it means I don’t have to wake up at four to put on this tired pair of gum boots and bail myself out of a boat riddled with holes.

Mrs. Brown you have a lovely daughter. I won’t try and compete. In fact, while she’s away at school, would you mind if I came around one day to try on her clothes, sit at her dressing table and brush my hair? I don’t mind if her reflection’s still there. I’d rather have you love me through the safety of her skin than feel the full impact of your eyes on this second-hand frock my mother made me wear to piano lessons.

I never wanted to be the popular girl in school. I wanted secret access to her room so that I could bury my face in her warm bedding and breathe in her shampoo; run my fingers through the folds of her wardrobe and examine each vial, each bottle – the enchanted drugstore culmination of everything she was. I wanted to put my arms around her while she slept and kiss her full on the mouth and tell her how beautiful she was, how she deserved everything she had, because she did. All beautiful people deserve to be worshiped.

How do I put two and two together, when you’re a two and I keep subtracting this way?