Some TV and a hot dog washed down with Cherry Coke followed by images of a car crash on the M1 that pave the way for daydreams involving alluring women with supple hips slithering upon hot white sand and then it’s stray dogs burning on the streets of Moscow and for hours I’m just sat there doing not much of anything wondering why it is I’m so odd. Might do the dusting. Put the vacuum around and get rid of the dust. Dust everywhere. It never seems to shift. My own dead skin, smothering me like an unwanted lover. I light up a smoke then watch The Elephant Man again. Makes me feel sad so I have a few beers and close my eyes thinking about Victorian England and what it must have smelled like. Imagine the filth. Imagine the pubs and the dirty, diseased skin and even dirtier naughty bits and all the rats throwing parties on the cobbled, litter-strewn streets. Then there’s Jack the Ripper. The fog. Mitre Square. London scum and enough dead eyes to last you a lifetime. Nothing behind them save for bogs and boarded-up shops and bridges that go nowhere and hundreds of miles of black and white nightmares that get under the skin and into the brain like a bullet from the gun of some vengeful other. Morning makes way for afternoon so that means Neighbours will be on soon. Maybe I’ll do some writing? Just a few words. A vague sentence or two to capture alienation and despair. Bit of boredom, too. Boredom never hurt anyone. If you’re lucky it’ll give you wings. Popping to the nearest store wearing clothes over my pyjamas, X is somewhere in the clouds above flying with swans never wanting to come down. If I strain, I can almost hear her distant laughter. In the store, kids give me strange looks and there’s a woman at the counter asking for cigarettes and when she turns to me I see she’s not wearing a bra and I don’t want to look but I look and she stares at me so I turn to my right and pick up a packet of biscuits pretending to read the ingredients. They’re the Hovis ones, though, so it’s okay. Just as she’s leaving, she eyes me up and I can’t tell if she approves or thinks I’m dirty like one of those diseased Victorian cocks I was thinking about. She was alright, though. She had nice tits. Might think about her after I have my daily breakdown where the nature of my pitiful existence causes me to question whether or not this whole writing thing is worth it or not. It is. But still, the inevitable breakdown will occur as prompt as ever but to make it better I’ll think about that woman and then about X until I pass out on my bed with the words of Shakespeare on my lips.

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.co.uk

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.com