A perfect moment
By Eden Cain
You sit in the backseat of a tiny car
All elbows and knees
Squished together far too closely
the October cold taps sharply on the window
as autumn whips by
The sound of your friends laughter
Carries over the music
It’s a perfect moment, one you wish you could freeze
And you want to tell them that you love them
But none of the right words will come
You know they know
But you love them like you love watching a sunset crack open the sky
Like the feeling of the wind pinching your cheeks rosey.
You love them like you love seeing how the pavement sparkles with frost in the morning
Like the sound of rainfall against a window
But you can’t say that
Not here
Not in this perfect moment
In this tiny car
Instead you’ll make fun of how we wore white trainers to a pumpkin patch
when we finally shuffle free from the back seat
We slide through mud
Fighting for the best one
Laughing when someone falls
And you look at their faces
Cast gold in the fading autumn sun
And realise you need to say nothing
Because you love them like you love this perfect moment
Frozen hands clutching prized pumpkins, faces split wide by grins
And oh how truly you’ll feel, that this is more than enough
Illustration by Verity Laycock
