Author S. K. Nicholas

Loneliness and Shakespeare. Aching balls and funeral marches, from one lover to the next. Picking out veins then slipping them into the kitchen sink, they bleed without reason. Shaking hands and blowjobs. The need to be seen, and the need to feel real. I require neither. To be as far removed as possible. To hitch up a skirt and give it real good. Honesty. Boredom. The mocking chimes of church bells. Gazing into half opened eyes, you turn on the spot and glimpse attraction. Black stockings and the scent of biscuit tins. Beneath the trees at the end of the garden, you once travelled to some far away place. It was a circus in the woods where they found bones that belonged to some girl or other. You remember the fog and subsequent hangover. You remember young lust. Down the alleyway and across the dimly lit fields in October. From womb to tomb, and back again. You put your insides on display, but it’s not enough. To be away from the lowly souls, to feel some sense of peace. You kiss the dust and feel the atoms in your bones sighing. I’m just riddles and regret. You feel it all leading to some pitiful end. But it’s Hollywood y’all. Banality and booze, he said. It’s a teenage wasteland, she said. Smoking a cigarette and watching thunder roll in, you dive into the rabbit hole. It takes you several years to escape, and when you do, Jackson Pollock is still dead, and Richey Edwards is still missing. He just wanted some solitude too. Guilt, she wears it like a badge. It makes me blush, and it makes me bored. The secrets I hold, the stars that have seen me at my most beautiful. I’m sullen, and I’m tired. When I’m drunk, I’m a disaster. Empty bottles of wine, empty like the corpse of a dead dog, or the journal of someone who never tried. Old colouring books, crayons and Lego bricks in her purse. Old wedding photos, abandoned and left to wither. Kissing eyelids. Spreading muscle. A thumb of eyeliner on her cheek. The London skyline. Upon ageing teeth, all you want is a little truth. A little spark to get you through the night.