Clicks

The sun is up, and hot,

and is making the plastic gutters click.

They expand in the heat,

clicking, clicking,

echoing the magpie racket

in the otherwise peaceful morning.

The click makes me think of

revising for my GCSEs,

or rather: sunbathing on study leave.

Factor 15 and a bath towel in the garden

while my parents were at work,

thinking I was revising. 

I had one of the best tans of my life.

I wasn't content then:

wondering what life might be like,

lonely in my introverted thoughts.

Lying in the sun, I tried to stamp them out

by listening to the gutters click.

What if I was never normal,

what if I always felt like this?

I can't imagine what it would have been like

if there had been Pride Month back then.

A tiny pocket radio blasted Radio 1, 

Eve feat. Gwen Stefani 

played on the hour. 

My day played out by 

arranging my books but not looking at them,

listless and making coke floats.

I was devoted to the lineup:

Sara Cox, Jo Whiley, Mark Radcliffe, 

Scott Mills.

Now I'm 40 I listen to them on Radio 2.

I still tan, 

but now with Factor 50. 

I still notice the gutters clicking,

on hot days in the sun, 

but I'm extroverted and out and

content now, finally,

but remembering the summer of 2001.