MADDISON BRAKE

Geelong/Djillong / Writer
Self-isolation. Working from Home (it's been a month). Job at risk.

Maddison Brake lives and writes on Wathaurong land. A few months back, she told her entire family she was going to do her PhD, she isn’t sure now.

𓅔

In the dreamspace, my lover takes on the form of a man sitting as a passenger in a Mitsubishi Triton. His friend is driving, hands calm turning the wheel toward our new direction. We’re going to a Zine market, we’re going to the NGV, we’re going to Dumplings Plus on Swanston St, we’re driving around my suburb. This passenger is restless in the backseat and insists that he drive us. — you can drive? I ask. — of course, he replies joining me in the front cabin. I know him, this dream him and that last time I really knew him, he couldn’t drive. So, I look in the rearview each time he brakes to make sure there isn’t a car behind us waiting to caress our bumper. It hits me that here, I’m still twenty and on my L plates and I don’t know how to control a car either. His friend disappears and I don’t realise that we are driving alone. — put your hand on his thigh, the quiet says. Under my palm, his body transforms into an old revulsion. This gesture I perform often with my undreamed lover, but he frightens me. For this is a body that I am supposed to want. I do not. And C, she is looking at me through the fog with her hand held out. Very tenderly, I lean away.

(9/4/2020)