Essential elements of a family holiday when you are 15

a list poem by Kathi Satchel

– A caravan

– Sun

– Sand

– Sea

– Skin sticky with salt

– A sunburnt nose that peels for weeks after you get home, giving you a freckle-faced summer look when school starts, and melanomas when you’re old.

– Familiar faces 

– Shimmering new friends

– A grassy field for day-time games of cricket and soccer, and night-time star gazing, where you look up at the vast studded universe and think about where you fit amongst it all and particularly, because you’re fifteen, particularly where you fit amongst this group of not quite familiar friends, only to discover you prefer the bold boy with an urgent tongue and wandering hands, not the pleasant boy who can name the stars and show you how to use the Southern Cross to find south

– Smooth, tanned legs glistening with coconut oil

– Near naked bodies laid out on the beach

– Sunglasses and a peak cap, all the better to perv

– Waves that tumble bodies

– A river back at camp to wash away the salt imprinted on your skin

– Night games of capture the flag, where you find yourself in the shadows with a near stranger, bodies pressed together as you hide from the other team. You share a moment. Hold your breath. It passes.

– Soft kisses

– Moments of indecision: 

A group of you swim across the Coke coloured river, splashing and showing off, to climb the rocks on the other bank, climb with no intention of jumping, climb slippery and wet until you find yourself standing out on a rock, looking down at the river far, far below, with the full weight of fear in your stomach until your knees start to buckle, and you react to the voices in the water below and 

– jump