Author S. K. Nicholas

The days chew me up and spit me out as if I were a piece of gum, yet I’m still writing after all these years. While others settle down to become obedient little machines, as night comes crawling, I’m far away, dancing with the shadows that haunt my mind. They don’t all haunt; some seduce, and some tell me their secrets which I put down onto paper. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it makes me feel at one with God. Closing my eyes, I see a noir cityscape. Amidst the sepia sky and endless concrete, she’s waiting for me on a balcony overlooking the sea. As mysterious as her womb, it swells with the rain that pours like drowned thoughts. She’s soaked, but she doesn’t care. I isolate myself to make her come alive, and with every passing day, she breathes a little deeper. With every drunken thought, she speaks words that have a life of their own. Acts of social importance hold no value. Appearances bore, as does self-esteem. It’s what lies behind the veil; those moments that take you away from bland convention others so willingly sacrifice their freedom for. Be pregnant with my lust. Be captivated by my obsessions. Become a victim of the horrors that lurk within my head, and then take my hand and swim with wild horses. Link your fingers with mine, and taste the love that knows only your name. The years come and go, yet time means nothing when faced with your gaze. A cigarette balanced on the edge of a table. The taste of wine as it slides down my throat straight from the bottle. Some would call them demons, but I see them as monsters. Monsters that want me to bring them to life, to bathe them with a light so pure that just for a fraction of a second, they feel release before being no more. Perspective is everything. Just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t give you the right to dismiss it. It shows you as being weak, and it’s the weak that follow the crowd. So meek and mild, they do as they’re told. If you gave me a choice between acceptance and ridicule, it would be the latter every time. Madness my medicine, and the key to self-fulfillment. She knows it as well as I, and as she tries to sleep tonight, I wonder how far she’ll go to bury her truth.