A winters dream

Sterling, you’re the boy with a sunburned neck, squinting under the midday Queensland sky,
while the golfers around you mumble
about the weight of irons and drivers—
and you nod, not listening,
because you’re watching the way the wealthy
drift by like clouds that have no need
to rain on anybody.

Then there’s Killian—
hair like sunlit water, laughter
like the rustle of leaves on the club’s big oak.
She breezes past in her crisp clothes,
her teenage certainty, her tan arms gleaming,
and you, a kid of grocery store aisles
and long hours caddying,
think, Ah, that is what life could be.

Fast forward—there’s you in a suit,
grinning too wide, clutching the keys
to a car too expensive, an apartment
with a view, a wine glass that never leaves
your hand. And every polished floor,
every glittering river of Brisbane at night
is just you, still trying to make that distance
between you and her a little smaller.

And one night, she returns—
older, yes, but with that same gleam,
the boldness you’d first seen by the golf course,
and she leans close, laughing
about “the good old days,” as if
she’d always known what this meant to you.

She leaves, of course.
Killian always did. Off to Melbourne,
or was it the Gold Coast this time?
It hardly matters. Because you’d be there
waiting again, feeling the hollow place
in your chest fill up briefly
like an empty tin can that catches the rain.

And then, news of her—
Killian, settled in suburbia,
a husband with dirty hands,
children with skinned knees, a garden
of flowers that need watering.
You picture her, the Killian who once
held a room like a small sun,
now clinking mugs of coffee
with her husband as the sun rises
over a modest backyard.

So here you are,
fingertips cold against the river railing,
watching the city lights flicker
like stars on water. And you finally
see her for what she was—
not a woman, really,
but a life you wanted to live,
a mirage that drifted in and out,
leaving only the faint, mocking echo
of laughter on a golf course.

FSF