She cuts for the vaguely wild shrubs at the perimeter of the schoolyard at the first opportunity. I open my bag of discarded dreams with a butter knife, having lost sight of her. Leaf Sunday, a summer breath between bursts of description, like feral cats in a pixel world. The playground is where the world was first invented, a fantasy of prehistoric children – whose mischief and clever grace still haunt certain institutions. We live in the fabricated wilderness of our scab-crusted fears. I was prone to reverie, to world-building, unable to reconcile loneliness and autonomy, the internal torque of a spiral. The rhythm that cannot be broken, because breaking is a part of the rhythm. It defines the distance between us.