Same number waiting. Still I open the app again. Hope is a stupid habit. So is thinking some random transfer is about to appear tonight.
Tag: budget
I can calculate it in a second. Asking for it is the bit that shrinks me. Pride and rent should not share a table anyway.
Date night maths in this city is unhinged. We sat down already behind. London charges you for arriving. Then it charges you for leaving too.
I stand there doing maths like it is romance. London will charge you for lunch and still call it a deal. I laugh. I pay.
Nice people go quiet. The group chat dries right up. Then the money leaves and we are mates again. Poverty makes all our manners seasonal.
I tell myself the promotion ends the tight feeling for good. It will help. It will not make me suddenly wise on a Friday night.
Not sex this time. An actual argument. I put music on and hated myself for listening. Thin walls make you an unpaid bloody little witness.
A walk is never just a walk. Travel, outfit, time off the rota. Casual is a lie London tells so nobody notices the standing order.
I know the night bus exists. My feet know it too. Sometimes I pay the stupid fare so I do not think until I get home.
Lip, coat, nails, bus. Nobody has to know the account. This city reads surfaces first. I give it a surface that looks like proper winning.