The old woman stands there looking at me as I light a smoke. It’s bitterly cold, and the ground is covered in a thin sheet of ice. She has one of those bags on wheels that pensioners always push their shopping around in, and she’s smartly dressed- smart enough to look out of place. I feel sorry for her, sorry that no one cares. I care, but that somehow doesn’t seem enough. Maybe she has children, even grandchildren, but at the moment our paths cross she’s alone just the same as me, and on this cold December evening, in this bubble of us as we wait at the bus stop, we have only each other. Sat at the back of the bus absently gazing out the window ten minutes later, I think about the possessions that remind me of you. How they sit in a box within my wardrobe gathering dust. Sometimes I get them out. Leaf through them and remember who you were. Do you remember that girl, or is that version of you just too far gone to recall? As I order a whisky in the lonely hours of the night and flirt with some blonde who likes the hairs on my chinny chin chin, I imagine who the last guy to fuck you was and how it must’ve made you feel. Was it a union of lust or just one of those things you do to make yourself less lonely? Ordering the group of us a round of shots, I silently toast to your health before the night dissolves into a mess of colours and sounds that will no doubt remain shapeless upon waking. Are you a cypher of love- or a symbol of death? Should you be forgotten, or do I keep clinging to your memory in the hope that it will one day set me free?

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.co.uk

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.com