Author S. K. Nicholas

There are outlines around their bodies. They shimmer and shine and reach out to me like the face of a lover from a photograph not yet taken. With my eyes darting this way and that, I embrace the decay that these hours bring and feel alive for not having given in. This transformation, it’s threatened for years, and for years it was kept subdued. But then along came a revelation and as such, the pillars of my being altered in ways I hadn’t anticipated at all. It’s a circus and a porno and a mess for sure, but in our confusion, we should always feel blessed for being the rebels we are. In my childhood, when I was walking hand in hand to the swimming pool with my girlfriend, some kid further down the line proclaimed that he didn’t believe in God. Our five-year-old selves, we were all horrified. We couldn’t understand how reckless he could be, but looking back, he was the first of us to see beyond the boundaries. His name was Simon. He probably doesn’t even remember this moment, but to me, it remains the benchmark for enlightenment. The swimming pool we would go to, it had a big red slide that snaked its way along the length of the pool. Kids would go on it again and again. I can still remember the steps that took you up into the air. That excitement of being next in line. And then you were shooting through time. For a few seconds, nothing else mattered, and then came the payoff. The plunge into the body of water at high speeds as everything and everyone around was drowned out. On the verge of going in, my eyes would widen, and a tingling sensation would grow in my belly. I achieved my first ejaculation in that pool. Plunging in at great speed, I disappeared beneath the surface and held my breath until the tingle in my belly button grew and grew until it devoured my infant bones. For a few seconds, I was floating in the womb. It was everything and more. It was creation and the infinite. And then came growing up and the halting of perception and the blah blah blah of conformity and the even worse fate of thinking you’re free when you’re anything but.

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.co.uk

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.com