Author S. K. Nicholas

Looking up at the night sky that’s littered with meteors and old paint cans, I remember lying down in the middle of a road while drunk and in awe of her beauty. She was dancing in circles, and as my head rested against cold asphalt, her eyes were brighter than the stars that awaited my next move. Row after row of cherry trees. Parked cars with their windows smashed out of the boredom of having to live in a country that never breathes. The words bled from my fingers then just as they do now. The waters that choke me are alcoholic and as old as the first galaxies. They speak to me of the magic of existence, and they sing songs that could only have come from the lips of God himself. Getting to my feet and lighting a smoke, the world spun just like she, and even though her image is now so old, I can still hear her laughter, and despite the time that has passed, it reduces me to a giddy fool. Some say it’s only skin, but I don’t believe them. There’s more to what we know, and although I have no proof, I can feel it in my bones, and sometimes, when everything is quiet, and everything is still, it calls to me from the other side. It’s in the shadows cast by my hands; it’s in the emotions experienced by such tiny acts no one else seems to notice. I look at those around me, yet they never seem to see. So many beautiful gestures of a universe doomed to stretch apart until there’s nothing left but the silhouettes of who we used to be. As cats jump on me on my way home from work, and bumble bees try their best to sting as I hang out my washing, I want it to be known that it’s you I think of when I lie awake at night. And even though we’ve never met, and probably never will, it’s your face that sends me to sleep when sleep was what I craved most.