writing exercise

2026-02-07

waldsymphonie

it’s 2012 and we are allowed to get married now. when we hear the news over the radio lacey is in the kitchen making lentil soup for dinner. i am in the next room over, reading a book my parents sent us last christmas. we repeat it to each other over and over and it sounds like a symphony. birds and rustling leaves and fox cries and waterfalls, music.

forest light

we do not have a large ceremony. it’s in the woods. lacey’s long hair is illuminated by the sun through the trees and i think about how i was so afraid to get close to her, once. after. lacey wears white and i wear a suit. around my neck is a silver locket, a photo of her on the right, closest to my heart, and nara short for carbonara on the left.

geometry of nature

“it’s like we’re having a cuddle in there,” lacey had said when i had the locket made. nara and lacey always curled together like puzzle pieces. i would find them napping around the house, geometrically intwined.

my mother had also observed this of me and lacey. “it’s like you’re a pair of ferns,” she had said, gesturing with her hands how we furl and unfurl into each other.

like mycelium we communicate through our roots, through small movements and vibrations in the earth and twitches of eyebrows. i know, intrinsically, what lacey is thinking and feeling and she has the same for me. i think about us as mushrooms on the forest floor.

lacey

2026-02-05

in the winter, lacey wears black polka dot patterned tights under her jeans, visible when she crosses a leg over the other and the jeans ride up her shin. there is a dime-sized hole in one of the thighs from ashing her cigarette too close to herself when she was wearing only the tights and burning the acrylic. i know about the hole in the thigh because i took her jeans off once.

it had been colder than usual, snow from the weekend still frozen on the ground. we, bundled in scarves and hats and long coats that buttoned to the chin, still went out to a wine bar that had opened in my old neighbourhood. lacey put her hands in my coat pockets in the queue outside. she tried to worm her way inside my coat, press cold hands underneath my jumper, but i kicked at her shoes admonishingly and she blinked at me the way that makes me forgive her for anything. the yellow streetlights in the quiet, dark night made the world seem still then.

i ordered for us inside. lacey found a table in the corner, wine bottle candleholder layered in multicoloured wax. i brought over both glasses in one hand - white for me, red for lacey - and watched her move her index finger through the flame, fast enough to leave only soot on the pad. she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smudged black onto her freckled cheek, flushed pink from the cold. i had the urge to lick my finger and clean it off.

the bar was crowded and i was naggingly worried i might see someone i used to know. i didn't want to deal with answering questions about where i was living now (not telling), if i moved out of the city (not quite). i especially didn't want to see angela or carrie though lacey told me they broke up and carrie moved to sweden and after all angela would not go anywhere you couldn't smoke inside.

"hey," lacey said, nudging at my knee under the table with her foot. she'd taken her shoes off, socks over the tights. "you okay?"

realising i'd been staring at the candle flame i gave her a quick smile and nodded and got up to get us more wine.

we ended up getting a bottle of 2007 pinot grigio, more expensive than i could really afford, and we drank it from a shared glass when one of the bartenders accidentally took mine away. we laughed about nothing and at some point in the night i took my jumper off, frayed long-sleeved striped shirt not quite matching the bar or my trousers or lacey's fur-collared coat draped on the chair behind her ("it's secondhand," she'd said, when i raised an eyebrow at the piece). lacey's red lipstick was making an increasingly complete circle around the rim of the glass.

i noticed her fixated on the lower half of my face and felt self conscious. she reached over the table and told me to open my mouth. she wet her thumb on my tongue and cleaned away a spot of red. "that's better," she said, smiling. we'd changed seating positions at some point in the night, so though we were still across from each other we were closer now, sitting togther on one half of the rounded table. lacey's warm leg was still pressed against mine.

lacey lived in a flat with three other girls. they were all architects, not on purpose. i mean, they were architects on purpose but lacey hadn't moved in with them for that reason. lacey's room was the biggest and she didn't have to share with anyone, but it was on the second floor and less well heated than the rest of the place. but it was cheap, and closer to her work. i had just moved back in with my sister near the river. to say i moved in with my sister is a stretch, though, because she was never there. it was mostly me and her cat nara short for carbonara. lacey came over a lot. sometimes it was like we lived together. i liked to think about us living together and wondered what kinds of arguments we'd get into. probably ones about being noisy coming home too early in the morning (lacey) or forgetting to water the plants despite sticky note reminders around the kitchen (me).

after a few hours they started playing music we didn't like so we left. it had started snowing again and lacey lit a cigarette. i cupped my hands around her lighter and a snowflake landed on my knuckle, dissolving in the heat. i was a little drunk and i took the cigarette from between lacey's fingers. we looked at each other as i took a drag and i could feel her lipstick on my mouth again.

"there are better ways to borrow my lipstick, you know," lacey said.

"oh yeah?" i said.

lacey kissed me then. gentle at first, then open mouthed. i could taste the wine, or maybe that was me. when she pulled away the cigarette in my hand had burnt to the filter.

at home she kissed me again in the hallway while we toed off our shoes. at the end of my bed, i unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them off and we laughed when they got stuck around her ankles. lacey's laugh was sweet and high like a bell. running my hands up and down her thighs my thumb found the hole in her tights and circled the bare skin there. her skin was hot and i wanted a lot of things all at once. she pulled me up from my knees and i kissed her with my finger underneath the polka dots.

after, she fell asleep on my chest and i watched her head rise and fall as i breathed. i was conscious of my breaths then, not wanting to wake her. i stroked her hair and kissed the crown of her head. in the morning we made hot chocolate and and scrambled eggs with toast and did the crossword in pajamas on the couch. i wanted to think it made me special that she held my hand in her sleep.

lacey lives in the country now with her fiance. he is an italian man she met on a internet forum about shoegaze music. she still visits the city from time to time, to see her architects and me. she wears the polka dot tights now as she sits next to me on the train. i know they're the same pair because she told me, earlier, when we got coffee and she paid.

a few years back she'd stopped wearing that lipstick, and gifted it to me, pressing it insistently into my palm when i told her i didn't wear makeup. she knew that, of course. really, i never wore it because if i did, the last layer that touched her mouth would be gone forever.

✶

in a dream i kill david with a kitchen knife. david is lacey's now-husband. i have blood on my shirt and my face and he lies there, limp like a doll. lacey stands behind me and tells me she's so happy we can start our life together now. i undo his gold cross chain and let lacey clasp it around my neck, holding my hair out of the way. his blood is the colour of her lipstick, lacey-red.

dream-us have a flat all our own with big windows that open outwards and wooden floors we cover in expensive rugs. nara short for carbonara sleeps on the windowsill while lacey smokes and i put a record on. we have money and want a daughter. lacey would dress her in pale greens and blues and we would walk around the park, one hand for each other, one hand for the pram. we discuss names over dinners i make in the apron lacey likes when i wear so she can undo the bow at the back and slide her hands around my waist from behind.

"are you seeing anyone?" lacey is asking me now. i'm hanging laundry on the clothes horse in my flat, the one that used to be my sister's. lacey is curled up on the sofa in the living room and i ignore the clink of her wedding ring against the mug of tea she cradles.

"not really," i say. i'm tempted to say yes actually, margot the viennese investment banker and i are truly very happy, you see but i have never been a convincing liar.

lacey hums. i should ask her about her marriage to be polite but i don't care. i resent that we've become this, where i tiptoe around what to say to her like we weren't the best parts of each others' lives. it used to be so easy.

once, she kissed me again. they had been married only a few months. we were all on holiday in italy, at david's family's vineyard, me, lacey, david, and my girlfriend at the time, holly. holly was taller than me and american. her hair was short and red and difficult to hold on to when we kissed.

lacey and david were in a fight for reasons undisclosed to me and holly and so i offered to make the dinner. holly was out walking david's dogs, two big german shepherds, and david went on a drive to let off steam. his car was bright red and expensive-looking, and had claw marks on the leather of the backseat from the dogs.

"he likes to drive fast," lacey told me once. i couldn't tell if it scared her.

i made coq au vin and green beans. lacey gave me david's apron so i didn't dirty my blouse and repeating visions of her untying the strings thrummed in my head. lacey sat at the kitchen counter and watched my back. wanting to impress her i sauteed the green beans high into the air, catching them all back in the pan.

we heard holly before we saw her, the dogs making happy noises in the foyer. she kissed my cheek, complimenting my cooking and saying something to lacey like she's such a catch. i remember lacey's reply: i know. then holly kissed my mouth and i looked at lacey while she did it. she was looking back at me.

holly wants to go for a swim in the ocean so we go get changed into swimming costumes. i wasn’t much of a swimmer and didn’t bring anything. lacey offers to let me borrow something of hers.

“go on,” i told holly. “we’ll catch up.”

alone in the villa lacey carded through a drawer to find something i could wear. david’s jacket and green corduroy trousers were folded neatly on their bed, next to lacey’s baby blue silk slip. i wondered if david took it off when he fucked her or if he just pushed it up over her hips. from the window i watched holly walking down to the water, towel over her shoulder. the air was hot and thick and i thought of lacey’s room in the architect flat.

lacey gave me swimming shorts and a black top. we changed together in her room and as she pulled her dress over her head and it toppled her hair down onto her shoulders. she smelled good like jasmine. i pulled on the shorts.

“can you hook this?” lacey said, her back to me. i said sure and clicked the plastic together, letting my hand rest on her shoulder blade for a moment.

“there,” i said. she looked back at me over her shoulder and smiled. then she turned and kissed my forehead, my mouth, my cheek. i let her do it and put my palm on the small of her back.

we joined holly at the beach and lacey dove into the water, salty droplets down her neck.

david came back in the morning with pastries and flowers, daisies. i went to the bathroom and locked the door behind me. looking at myself in the mirror i touched my fingers to my mouth. david’s gold cross chain was on the sink, forgotten. my head buzzed and i put it on, metal cool against my bare chest, being the man lacey wanted. i quickly took the chain off, disgusted with myself.

lacey and david were speaking quietly in italian downstairs and from the stairwell i saw him kiss the corner of her mouth, her hands on his chest.

we broke up shortly after the trip. “you are so miserable all the time,” holly had shouted at me across the living room. “don’t i make you happy?” she was crying and i just stood there. i told her she did make me happy. i wanted to go to her and put my hand on her arm but thought that might make it worse.

i found her bobby pins behind the couch cushions and under the dresser and in pockets of my coats for months afterwards.