I fall asleep in the late afternoon and wake up to the night kissing my eyelids, whispering the promise of bright streets and shadows, music and drunken laughter into my ears. Floating up from below are the sounds of clinking glasses and the hum of a thousand conversations, scooters and street-cleaning machines, skateboards and dogs and church bells; the city of masses occupied by ants. The breeze wafts in from the balcony and the marble floor is cool on my feet as I rise to go out.
The kitchen is full of Australians and the table is covered in small bags of white powder. There are bottles on the counter and someone is slicing up a lime. They are loud and happy and one of the boys empties a tiny bag out onto a plate, cuts it with his bank card and pushes it into thin lines like scratches. Someone makes us all drinks. Aussie spills powder on the floor and as I look up, he is crouched down, fifty-euro note up his nostril. We laugh, he is bent over on his knees, vacuuming the floor with his nose. I sit down to watch them, telling wild stories of wild nights, as they get more and more edgy their gestures become exaggerated and excited. I go to take a shower, Aussie wanders in and talks to me excitedly, laughing loudly. I laugh too, because he is fun, and attractive, and because he is so excited and happy and because he has a nice laugh, a loud one. I put on high-waisted denim shorts, rolled up at the bottom, and a half-corset. It is yellow with roses printed on it, and Aussie tells me I look like a pin-up doll. The girls come home and we all put on red lipstick and breathe in dust and dance around the kitchen with the boys and our drinks. There is white dust on everything, spilled everywhere. Everything is bright and exciting and electric and new, so we go out, piling into several taxis and speeding down the motorway to the beach. The line is not long and we get in for free, music pulsing through our eyes, our bodies, neon lighting up our hair and glancing off the pool inside. There are tall girls in rhinestone-crusted heels, long legs stretching from short short fluttery skirts, boys with gelled-back hair and printed shirts and their sweet-angry boy-smell. Eyes like saucers, skin like melting wax, sensual, ferocious. Aussie. Grab me by the waist, buy me a tall drink with a tall straw. Stroke my cheek, tell me I am beautiful. He disappears into the night, absolutely ******- *******, champagne, the rain of stars in his eyes, the reign of electric music in his limbs. Electric, wandering through the club like a lost prince, diving into the water like it was his home after all.

We are in a taxicab with a drink hidden in the space between our legs. We are skipping through the night. We are in the line wearing wristbands. We are laughing loudly with beautiful people. We are dancing all night under electric lights with electric music and electricity in our hair. We are slipping out of dresses and into blood-warm pools. We are being kissed, we are getting high, we are getting in for free, we don't pay a thing. We have stayed up all night into the dawn, we watch the sunrise, we stand on the balcony and watch the world pass under us. We are celestial. We are goddesses. Today the city is ours. The light sparkles on our skin.

how are you?
i am fine. i got wasted
last night. there is a boy here
in love with me. we are nice to each other
i suppose. how
are you? is it still hot
at home? do
you miss me?
i miss you.
i miss you.

last time i was here, we stayed
up all night together, talking
you looked like hell
and said you loved seeing
my face.
i do. miss it.*

i suppose i will come home
eventually
but i still don't know
if i will ever see you again.

The whole day, the whole night, we circle each other round the flat. In the heat he is on the couch and I sit at the table. I slouch on the bed, wrapped in someone's arms, he stares from the doorway. I stand by the window and he is at the stove. I can smell what he's making, he can smell my shower-fresh hair from across the room. He is in the bathroom in his towel, I am at the sink with my toothbrush. We are going out.
The hot night blows in from outside and then it stops. We shiver, he is in front of me, I am in front of him. Close. We don't touch but his skin is there, my skin is there, so close. So close.
Someone else comes in, the room is unstilled. The air moves again, I breathe out and someone's arm comes over my shoulders, leads me away. We circle.

you're waiting
at the bus stop for me
like a good lamp-post you have been waiting
all year
the moment passed but you're hoping
it will come back around,
that this time the bus doors will open
and i will reach out, pull you in close
back into the bus
where we could finally
get going.

you may as well
get going.
another blue-eyed, blue-jeaned bad boy
has strolled carelessly up,
slung an arm round my shoulders.

you may as well get going.

once upon a time
there was a beautiful duo
and when it was good it was perfect
when it was bad it was hell

there were bright candles and mirrors
laughter and cool drinks
and hot summer nights making love by the water

and then there were dark marks floating like **** under the skin
screams and silences
curling into sheets

The man next door cried for his wife
she treated him like less than nothing and still he called her,
every hour
to hear her drunken laughter shouting through the telephone
you're lying, you're lying, he cried
and still he called to hear her voice
to see that she was still there

the duo listened through the wall,
one curled like a kicked cat at the foot of the bed
the other calmly flicking through magazine
hearing themselves played out in bangs and shouts
the despair floating in the air like *****.