I have never clicked my fingers in the car to classic 90's rap, while everyone else talks and jokes in the way people do before the second act, before there's a baseball bat or my husband is wrapped in a bin liner, about to be thrown in a lake.

But I have walked downstairs at 2am to find the front door open.

I have been 7 years old and pinched fleas off my ankles, dunked them underwater just to watch them jump back out.

I have never found myself in a hall of mirrors with plastic bobbles in my hair, staring at my doppelgänger; Wurlitzer music, popcorn and candy floss burning the air.

But I have been 11, and unlocked a door to find no one home.

Turned on the TV to hear voices.

I have not dropped a strawberry ice cream on a beach during a metaphorically significant lightning storm.

I have not murdered rabbits in an underground tunnel, eaten them slimy and raw, while my doppelgänger eats American Fast Food, from a paper bag jumping with clowns.

But I have watched the cats bowl twist white with maggots.

The cat, a shadow in the hedge.

Animal movements I still look for, at my edge.

I have not bludgeoned my best friend to death with a frying pan and stolen her car keys, warm olive oil dripping yellow on the floor.

But I have watched flying ants fill a kitchen and smashed the walls silent with a red plastic broom.

I have never seen my mutant son drop a match on gasoline and spider backwards into fire.

But I have been 14, drunk beer with a man.

15, taken a pill in a club.

I have never watched my teenage daughter die, broken implausibly in a tree; because I am the protagonist, and this is the next beat in my journey.

But I have listened to the hollow cough of broken pipes above my bed, night after night climbed the orange flood stain in the ceiling, the one in the shape of a sapling.

Woken. Watched weevils rabble in a beam of sunlight, the sun slicing them up, white weft inside the pale peach carpet.

I haven't begged for my life in cold metal handcuffs, chained to a coffee table.

But I have stolen tampons in the pharmacy.

Had chocolate when I'm not hungry, to stop the ribs eating through.
 
I haven't seen an electric owl jump from a wall, its eyes glowing yellow.

But I've seen dawns.

I have not stabbed my doppelgänger though the chest with a fireside implement.

But I've smiled for the customer.

Hot clean white bunnies, jumping along long tiled halls.

I have never tried to kill myself.

But I have thought about it. In a light, escapist way; like beach-reading a book of condolences.

Like, an actor woman, playing a dead woman, on a film-set floor.

Like pink prop ice cream, white Hollywood rabbits, a Netflix lightning storm.

My doppelgänger life, in the mandarin forest. The could have been.

I watch the credits roll down my laptop like a thin white poem, a rain of
Best-boys and Catering vans. Count the lucky stars.

Outside now, there is one sky. Two magpies. And so, the day goes on.

There's Neapolitan ice-cream for dinner, Pizza quattro formaggi down the phone.


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