9.49 pm. I’m eating dinner and watching TV sat on a crusty old bean bag. Was supposed to go out and buy a settee at some point. It’s on my list of things to do, but nothing on the list excites me. In fact, I don’t even know where the list is anymore, and I’m in no hurry to find it. So here I am with a microwaveable meal in my lap and a pack of beer by my side to keep me company as the rain continues to fall just as it’s done all week. It never seems to end. Looking through the window, it eases my aching soul, and yet what I wouldn’t give for a slice of sunshine. Sipping a beer, it’s not long before my mind begins to wander. There have been women, but they left the same as everyone else. I’m a tricky individual to deal with, you see. At least that’s what I’ve been told. Too moody and lacklustre when it comes to the ways of living. What those ways are I have no idea, but as I sit here chewing a mouthful of gravy covered potato, life feels out of reach just as it always has. Closing my eyes after washing down the last of my food with a mouthful of beer, some guy presenting the weather forecast is doing his best to crack a joke, but he’s not fooling anyone. He’s as bored as me. It’s in his voice. He’s nervy. Desperate. You can sniff out a desperate soul a mile away. Even further if one happens to be on national TV. Smoking a cigarette, I figure where the empty beer can is and flick ash into it not wanting to open my eyes. The smoke makes everything feel as though it’s spinning. The room. My mind. It’s not something I enjoy, but I don’t fight it, because I know it’ll bring her to me, and sure enough, here she comes, waltzing across the living room as the cigarette drops from my fingers landing on the floorboards beneath my bare feet.

2.14 am. Through the old bus station, we run hand in hand. Upon the moors, we dance to the sound of thunder as it rolls across the land like the music of gods. Before long, our shoes are wet and covered with mud, and so in the blink of an eye we rise into the sky and float above all the towns and cities, and our laughter, it rings out like the cries of a wailing banshee and those on the streets below are left looking around wondering just what’s going on. Hanging from her neck, a crucifix sways and baptises the land. In her eyes, I see murder and a deviant nature, and in her grin, a place I wanna be above all else. On her back, she reaches out and touches the stars. She flicks them like marbles. She’s a cosmic lay. A child of the universe. A creature of the night unashamed to be what she wants to be, and as she lifts her hair and shows me her neck, I lick her skin as life beneath us twinkles and shimmers like fire in the eyes of animals on the prowl. The world is a sea of dreams. A viewing lens to a state of mind they tell us we’re not supposed to see. And she is a door. A lighthouse on the shore. Pulling me up, we link fingers and share ourselves before the moon, and then comes creation and radiance and that one true kiss that ignites the lives we wish to leave behind.

3.27 am. Her lingering scent.

3.54 am. Stillness.

4.13 am. Silence.

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.co.uk

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.com