Author S. K. Nicholas

She stands before the abandoned water tower. Covered in snow with dead trees reaching out to her, this feels like a dream, but I know it’s really happening. She says I’m disgusting, but I’ve seen what she looks like on the inside. Whiskey makes my teeth stand on edge. It burns a hole in my stomach that allows me to travel back in time. Nothing unusual, just a mishmash of images from when I lost my virginity. Drunken eighteen-year-old in the spare bedroom of my friend’s place. Get chatting to some girl in a club. Panda-eyes. Brunette. She clings as do I. Drunken taxi journey back. Hands. Feet. Tender hips. In. Out. Nipples. Breasts. Gasping mouth. Can’t remember her name. Don’t know who she was. She took my adolescent rage, and she kept it for herself. I’m more of a poet these days. Passion on such a fleshy level bores me. There needs to be conflict; a war between bones and fantasy. If it doesn’t set my heart alight, then it’s best kept for those with a taste for flesh and nothing more. As we search for meaning, sometimes we’re lucky enough to catch sight of ourselves when we’re not looking. When I ask you to take off that dress, it’s because I want to see every flaw. I want to witness each and every imperfection because that’s what makes you real. Every time we make love, we help delay the inevitable. Every time we embrace, we gob in the faces of all those who hate us for our truth. We live for what can never be explained. It takes us to the edges of the universe; it places us in good company. We are the question– and so it remains. Stray cats on New Years Eve that hustle for our affection. Towns, cities, countries. Too much heartache by far as the lights of police cars blind us as we stand in the middle of traffic islands eating fish and chips to take away the taste of Sambuca shots. We puke the morning after on the brink of despair that the magic has left us. Days. Weeks. Years. Sometimes decades, yet never centuries. We are now, and we are nowhere.