Writing Kisses That Taste of Cheap WineA kiss that tastes of cheap wine is rarely about the wine. It is about the mouth that offered it, the music three rooms away, the arvo sun slanting through…Why I Keep A Matchbook From A Bar That ClosedI keep a matchbook in the back of my desk drawer, tucked beneath old receipts and a theatre ticket I have never thrown away. The cover is soft with age, the…The shirt I slept in for a week after the breakupThe morning he left, I didn't change out of his shirt. It was a faded blue button-down that smelled like coconut shampoo and something warmer underneath. I…The Tie I Stole from a Man I Never ToldSome objects arrive in our lives with a story already attached. A chipped mug remembers a share house, a red dress carries the pulse of a first date, and a…When a broken zipper becomes your turning pointThe morning I stood in a fitting room at Westfield Sydney, dress half-on, zipper jammed halfway, I felt the whole day collapse. Twenty minutes until a brunch…What a grocery list from a shared apartment says about loveMove into a place with someone and the kitchen becomes a shared brain. The fridge magnets multiply, the Tupperware migrates, and somewhere between the chopping…The Sunglasses I Broke the Summer I Stopped PretendingThe sunglasses were cheap, black, and slightly too large for my face. I bought them from a rack near the register because the afternoon had turned brutally…How to describe a hand that let goThere's a particular cruelty in the way a hand lets go. Not the dramatic shove or the theatrical flinging, but the slow uncurling of fingers, the softening of…When the Storm Outside Feels Safer Than the One InsideThere is a particular kind of weather that lives in the bones of an Australian childhood. It is not the brilliant sun that bakes the footpaths of Surry Hills…The necklace I unclasped the moment I chose myselfThere is a particular sound a clasp makes when it finally gives, that small metallic exhale. It happened on a Tuesday in my share house in Fitzroy, blinds…