Tin Man

by Sarah Winman

Don’t do that to me, he says. Do what? I say. Make out things are nothing. Things that I’m not going to experience. That’s fucked up. Pity you if you thought it was overrated. I would’ve fucking revelled in it.

I don’t want to be defined by all this. We were all so much more than this once.

In my chest, the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth.