She claims to be unwell, but in her belly, she holds the moon and the stars, and in her veins, flows not blood but milk, so how could she feel anything but heavenly? When she stands in the doorway as I’m drying myself off after showering, she eyes me up while rolling a cigarette pretending not to look at my cock. It’s nothing special. Average size, I guess, but she likes the shape of it much the same as I’m drawn to her labia in both its appearance and taste. It’s her real mouth, I tell her. When she spreads herself, it’s like peering into the past. It’s like seeing myself as a child looking at the world through a buggy being pushed by my nan on a rainy day in Luton. I’m eating a packet of mints, and the plastic cover that’s been zipped to keep me from getting wet has steamed up. It’s somewhere in Lewsey Farm; I’m sure of it because the sight of the swimming pool always edges into view just before my vision of the outside world is obscured by the mist of my adolescent breath. It’s one of my earliest memories, and whenever she parts her legs and invites me in it’s usually one of the first things I see. What follows changes each time we merge. Sometimes there are snapshots of family holidays on the south coast, or lucid glimpses of playing kiss chase as a six-year-old in the school playground, or it could be an endless summer’s day drinking Vodka Red Bull in a beer garden as a student, but whatever the secondary vision, they’re always proceeded by the same sensation of a trillion tiny ice crystals piercing my flesh as I travel through the Ort Cloud like a tiny sperm on my way to finding my mother’s egg. This lover, my familiar, she offers so much, and yet she’s more than just a vessel because I’ve seen her break down and know the pain she carries even though she does her best to appear nonchalant. Watching as I sit on the edge of the bed drying my hair, she opens the window and flicks her cigarette into the road where it dies an instant death. Turning to face me, we say no words. The restaurant awaits us and the taxi’s on its way, and even though she’s sad it won’t last long, and sure enough, when we’re sat in the back of the vehicle with the town slipping past so quick, she puts her hand in mine and just like that she blooms.

A Journal for Damned Lovers UK

A Journal for Damned Lovers US

Anthology UK / Anthology US