It was time to start saying some nice things.

Tick Tick Tick Tick Tock Hynes …

I’m sorry. Don’t worry about prepping anything. Mum will feed them. Love you.

… I really do fucken love you too, even when you’re ratty, soz too, but you’ve been so … ratty … unpredictable

Just bringing the element of surprise I’ll be grand – prob just the meds xoxo

… I think you’re hungry. Hangry? Remind me to tell u bout a doc I watched on Hunger Strikers

Can.Not.Fucken.Wait.More.Pain.

Crazy shit

… I’ll pop in, just need to check with your mother and I’ll get there asap

K?

K.

Heart. Red.

Heart. Red.

I picked apart a split end, amazed at how many pieces a narrow hair ending can divide into, and splayed the hair out like the top of a skinny lotus. I couldn’t see my kids. They couldn’t see me. Not yet. Not like this.

SPOTIFY: I Shot the Sheriff.

I muted it, I needed one of those you-go-to-too-much-power-songs for when you can’t regulate your own emotions, when you know you should be sad, but you giggle, or you know you should be sad but you scream, or you know you should be sad, and you go out and fuck. No strings. Sad. Mad. Bad. Same. Emotion. I braved Sinéad O’Connor singing ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. She guts me, her voice like a pike or a bayonet. Her big eyes, that face, and the long sadness of the line where she goes to the restaurant, and just then my mouth filled with my tears.

SINÉAD: MEANING: Irish form of Jane – God is gracious. (God my hole) GENDER: Girl | Female IRISH NAME: Sinéad PRONUNCIATION: shin + aid ENGLISH: Jane, Janet, Janette.

But gawd, did Sinéad O’ Connor gut me open like a fish-o-filleted.

I first met Alex on a Friday, start of weekend. We had both gone to the canal near the Claddagh after work to watch the swans. I noticed him and watched him standing at the edge of the bank, legs spread and his hands in the back pockets of light blue jeans, a chocolate-brown Fred Perry hoody zipped up tight to his chin, grey runners with white stripes. When he turned to face me, I saw he had deep mistrustful eye sockets, as though he were constantly exhausted, but he had a warm and generous smile, with two deep dimples. He was laughing away to himself as two Whooper swans fought over a milk carton.

He was just the type of guy I never went near. The jeans, the runners, the zip top. As the swans came closer, he attempted to pass pleasantries in my direction, about the wind, the milk carton, the orange beaks. I interrupted the swans with a flocking motion of my hands, cautiously, and tried to grab the milk carton, to break up the fight, but ended up being head-butted hard in the stomach by the most giddy of the swans, to which end he stopped laughing and ran to my attention. I knew he was an OK sort, for it was the first time anyone moved so fast towards me.