Author S. K. Nicholas

An obsession with the past. So much so that the present slips through your fingers. It’s in the romance of the fall. The struggle of dancing with distant stars and breathing in the intoxicating scent of every atom that burns with delirious passion. The descent is what makes us crave life. The hand of death pinching the nape of our necks. The cold waters of nature forever striking the fear of nothingness into our stupid hearts. This is now, and we are nowhere. Sometimes, the sadness smothers like a blanket. It drowns us in its comforting touch. Stay in bed and don’t go out. Close your eyes and curl into a ball. Disappear. Travel to somewhere safe. The green fields of yesterday, always mocking but never false. Don’t pick at scabs, and fight those shadows that desperately seek to invade your skin until the saliva runs from your trembling lips. Smash that alarm clock and call in sick. Work works for no one. Bleeding for a machine is of no use to anyone. Worshipping plastic pyramids will be the end of us all.

A lone body on the beach. Hacked up like it were nothing out of the ordinary. Someone wields a machete and rips off its limbs. Arms then legs. Blood flows to the sea as the waves lap the lazy shore. A person like no other obliterated out of existence. Our love so special, yet banished as if those moments never even happened. Tender lips and interlocked fingers. Spooning with the moon a faithful witness. Peaceful embraces and wild collisions. These are the things you burned along with all those bridges. These are the gifts you destroyed in favour of cheapened acts. You let it all fall apart and refused to bite the bullet. You absolved yourself of blame and placed it on me instead. Snakes and ladders. Quicksand and tightened throats. Buildings that glow with every cigarette smoked. Faces that blur with every emptied bottle. Choose your poison. Ignite your fuse. Spit out all of those forced words and swim with the spirits of everyone you ever loved instead. Stillness. Summer photographs. Memories of dust. The day the world went away. You never cared. You never felt a thing. Drifting through the streets with no need to go home, there’s only the night to call my own.

Timeless moments etched into the fabric of what we are. Loss so heavy when baby clothes lay unworn in the trunk of a car. You were my everything, but nothing stays the same. It all boils down to belief. To the passage of souls through the eye of a needle. In a field of corn, you smiled so pure. That pretty city dress flowing to me in the breeze. My hands caressed you; they praised every inch of what you were. Loss is not weakness. Weakness is not loss. Somewhere in the distance, we’re shining just like we did all those aeons ago. We can never forget, nor can we ever let go. No matter how hard we try, the ties that bind will always remain. They make us human. They place us in the firing line. Eaters of worlds. Writers of stories. Time travellers without even knowing. Make yourself a drink and fall between the layers of your mind. Slip into something new. When the hours dissolve your will, draw yourself a door. Move without knowing where the next step will take you. Not crushed but in bloom. Not waving but flying like Peter Pan through the bewildering skies.