i think of you when i'm alone like this.

The body is aching and tired but the brain is wired and whirring, alive and flickering with too much caffeine and staying up all night to get a story written. It was finished at six in the morning, just as the morning light began to peek in through the blinds, so I left the self-imposed prison of my room and escaped into the light of the early morning.

The smell of eucalyptus and soil, heavy in the air. Traffic gearing up along the main road. Birdsong. Hot-air balloons. floating distantly on the horizon. On the top of the bridge my tummy begins to cry out for food - home, I go. I promise myself that I'll do this again, but properly, very soon.

SLEEP.

save your light for darker days.

photo © ziz.

Twenty minutes to the next Hurstbridge train at Parliament station. I step outside the station for a cigarette, from underground, up to air, sitting down on the steps still warm with the unrelenting heat of the day. Moths are gathering around the bluest streetlight, strong above me. I spark up; inhale, exhale.

Nineteen minutes.

Song on repeat for the commute home: Digitonal, 'A Lighter Touch'. This gorgeous, warm, simplistic ambient piece speaks of comfort and of sweeter things, to me. Things I've been missing.

Home, and the ceiling fan is going strong above me, the lights are all out. The heat of the day is still going strong. I think I'll let Alison Goldfrapp sing me to sleep tonight.

it makes it melt away.

I was in a filthy mood all day long, but it dissipated once I left the house and walked into one of the clearest twilights Melbourne has blessed us with in awhile. Funny, how that works out. There was coffee with an ex-boyfriend and later drinks with a friend of ours and I left feeling remarkably healed.

There's light to be found even after darkness has made its way into the backstreets and suburbs and city. The midnight commute home tonight was full of it. The train turning away from Clifton Hill, gaining speed, passing the last city-bound train for the evening lit up, illuminating the few and far between faces of the night's last commuters. A full moon hanging low and sweet in the sky. The digital clock at Bell Station, reading 12:11AM. Stars, strewn all along the horizon, dimmed by the glow of the CBD's light pollution. The blur of late-night traffic along Bell Street. Somebody's security lights flooding the street with its paranoia as I walk past their front yard. The shimmering, moody, joyful beats in my headphones, put on repeat, meshing with my steps, my heartbeat. A curious feeling of warmth in my heart.

The light is everywhere - it's just a matter of looking for it.