by Devon Webb

Here I am again, back in the pattern. Standing by the stage-right speaker at San Fran sipping a cocktail named after your band. Which is a new thing, the cocktail I mean. Not you. Not your band. Not me watching you more than I’m watching the stage. When you’re on the stage I watch you but it’s like I’ve got an excuse. My eyes absorbing you & they’re supposed to. Now though, they’re not supposed to. My direction is so obvious. When you meet my gaze & give me a little nod over your beer & I swallow my shyness & drift through the crowd to stand next to you. Like it’s gonna make us any closer. Like the dance floor isn’t full of too much space. Like between us isn’t full of too much space. 

I’m doing it again. Undressing you, not in a crass way, but like those old internet games – you know, like Stardoll, but backwards. First the jacket, leather jacket, for the Wellington weather, the Wellington cool. Then the blue, with the buttons down it, so soft like you. Then the pants, with the thin thin stripes, & the shoes, the brown leather boots, such good fucking shoes. Now just the blouse, that brilliant blouse, puffed slightly at the shoulders & a few buttons undone with the chest hairs poking through oh boy you make me feel insane. & the pendant, turquoise, aquamarine, I don’t know, I’ll ask you. I’ll sit in your wardrobe like a museum. I’ll drink you like liquor. I’ll discover you like a star. 

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Devon Webb (she/her) is a writer & editor based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her award-winning work has been published extensively worldwide & revolves around themes of femininity, vulnerability, anti-capitalism & neurodivergence. She is an editor for Erato Magazine, Pulp Lit Mag & Prismatica Press, & a founding member of The Circus (@circuslit), a collective prioritising radical inclusivity within the indie lit scene. She can be found on social media at @devonwebbnz.