She said "I feel numb"

I said "That doesn't make sense

Numbness is a lack of feeling…”

She said I knew what she meant

And I did

I was just talking

I'm not a pedant but I was hesitant

To let silence walk in

I took her hand

And I kissed each knuckle

It didn't register at first

But then she smiled a smile that meant fuck all

"I don't think I wanna fight it"

She said without eye contact

"I want my last breath to be a laugh

Not the last gasp of a lab rat"

And I had nothing to say back

Just smiled and kissed each knuckle again

Comfort rewound and played back

We left through the lobby as I texted Skaghead Bobby - nice name, right?

He said he'd run out, but if we dropped off cash now he could sort us out the same night

So we dropped off a little money and went and had Happy Meals

"Lady's choice" I had said and she chose to pay Ronald McDonald's bills

I wore an upper-half face mask of the Hamburglar

And we took it in turns not to laugh as we ate the equivalent weight of a third of her

I used to buy weed off Bobby back in my late teens

He was as shady as his moniker but he could facilitate our new needs

Neither of us had done ecstasy before but we bought three tabs each

Fuck it! You only live once, and that's at the most it would seem

We walked along the South Bank wrapped up warm in coats and gloves

We sang songs, ran in circles, laughed and fell in love

It wasn't real love, of course, just a chemical alternative

But that was all that we required; temporary life-affirming shit

We were beauty that night, through drug-tinted glasses

The sun shone on us through the dark skies as the rest of the world passed us

Our on-foot adventures took us all the way down to Greenwich

Start to finish four hours give or take oh, a few minutes

Around 10:45 as we sat on a bench the place glew in the dark

You could see right across the river from the Cutty Sark to Millwall Park

We shared a kiss at that moment with no sexual undercurrents

She jumped to her feet and said "Let's play a game"

"If you can catch me right now, I will tell you my name"

And with that she turned and ran as I promptly gave chase

Through streets and alleyways as laughs cascaded from her face

Again I have no doubt it was down to the chemicals

But she seemed to float and glow as we bounded on like thinned blood through wide ventricles

All of a sudden, like in slow motion, she hurled herself into the air

Then in the blinking sound of a splash, I was stood all alone there

There was no flailing or splashes, just the first one that broke the surface

I heard that when a girl writes off the world it's done in cursive

I'd met her that morning in the waiting room at 7 A.M.

And 16 beautiful hours later, I'd never see her again