Author S. K. Nicholas

Armed with pens to draw bodies I haven’t seen in years, the effect is different to writing, and yet the results stay the same. I once took a photo of her as she slept, and every night for a month I tried capturing the innocence she exuded so effortlessly. Such delicate features she has, with a head of hair that rests upon her pillow as if it were floating on water. I was comatose for a great number of years. It’s a wonder I awoke. Surely suicide would’ve been far more preferable than to carry on in this place, and yet here I am, dragging myself along even though I’d rather be anywhere but. There’s much beauty; I’ll hold my hands up to that, and yet the horrors undoubtedly outweigh the positives countless times over. Life is not just a fear; it’s a curse to anyone with an ounce of decency in their heart. The small are crushed, and the tender kicked to the kerb until the bones in their skulls crack like the shell of a nut. Lying in bed until midday, I smoke cigarettes and watch the leaves of the trees outside my window as they dance in the wind. They dance like lovers in the heat of a drunken moment that exists only in the echoes of night. Her chest rising in a slow rhythm, who can tell what goes on in her head as she exists someplace else until the alarm on her phone goes off. Stroking her hair, I kiss the exposed skin of her shoulder before going downstairs and wishing for the end of the world. Drinking cold coffee, I wish we’d gone in our sleep, but such comforts are hard to come by. Sitting in the garden as she stirs for the best part of an hour, I remain motionless, inside and out. Clutching a dead leaf plucked from the ground, it crumbles between my fingers as the sun says hello. I say nothing, nothing at all.