It’s been a weird week.

I’m sitting on my balcony at 10:05pm, 23̊c and 64% humidity. Someone is smoking weed above, below, left or right of me. Maybe they all are, maybe I am too – maybe no one is and I’m that person at the bar who asks if anyone can smell weed but really there is no weed but then everyone thinks they can smell it too.

This week makes me feel like someone has taken everyone I know and love out of Melbourne and replaced them with complete strangers. Things are open but they’re not, no one is anywhere. Radio silence.

I think she’s isolating, maybe she’s got it?
He definitely has it, I can’t believe he turned up to work with symptoms.
They’re escaping because it’s all too depressing.
Didn’t you go away anywhere?
Are you sure you don’t have symptoms?

The weed smell has gone and now I can smell the donut place down the street on the corner. I love their donuts, but I hate waiting in there because the smell of the oil soaks into my clothes and hair. A high price to pay for high calories. The guy who runs the place is a bit of a hottie, but I wonder if he permanently has that smell because he’s there all the time.

The streets below are quiet again. No people running and yelling down the street to get more drinks at a bar or drink outside. Just the hum of the air-conditioning fan and a cough in the distance.
Do you think he has it?

I realised recently how deeply uncomfortable it is to be called perfect.
How stressful it is to be over-complimented.
When you put someone up on a pedestal, they will eventually fall off and you will walk away because they aren’t good enough to keep any more. You feel betrayed by the stranger in front of you who only looks somewhat like the fantasy you’ve created by filling in the gaps as you please.

The weed smell is back. I wonder where the breeze is carrying it from. Some laughter comes from somewhere, a gathering unseen. Aside from a car driving under the streetlight below and the leaves quivering in the light breeze around me, I see no one. It’s just me.

Sometimes when I come home, I half expect to see you there. When I walk alone along a busy street, I expect to meet your eyes. I know it won’t happen right now, or maybe even ever because that is how it’s meant to be. But I do feel sad. I do feel loss even though it wasn’t meant to be. I guess I don’t have it together as everyone thinks.
Sometimes, I’m a fool too.

The oil fryer smell is back, I need to take my melatonin and go to bed.