There’s an empty space in my carousel. A mare, cracked mane, chipped paint, Sarah <3s Asha carved into her seat flew off in the night.
A note: “No more kid-after-kid, the same music against a new skyline, I’ve left to be a rocking horse for the boy who was 10p short of crossing the railing, his knuckles unwhitening. Please forget me.”
The next night, another. He always wanted to be a racehorse: his name up in chalk, the crash of a hedge catching at unglued hooves.
Dreams of farmyards, tourist beachrides, coarse hairbrush in riding stables, cotton candy hands sticking to someone else’s shoulder.
Now the horses have all gone.
All I have are empty poles, ghosts of laughter, organ grinding for not a soul.
Sy is a queer non-binary person living in Edinburgh, Scotland. They write through the haze of cat-/child-induced sleep deprivation to try and make sense of gender, relationships, and ADHD. You can find them on Twitter @TartanLlama and their publications at sybrand.ink.