Dust particles on my fingers and a cool breeze that speaks her name in Mandarin. It comes through the window like a butterfly, and when I’m lying there on my back reading some book I purchased from a charity shop, it’s like life is a dream somehow. There’s a distant ringing of a car alarm, but I’m too indifferent to pay closer attention. The trees speak as they always do, but today I’m not listening. It’s rude but I’m sure they’ll understand. It hasn’t rained in weeks and the streets stink and dog turds boil before turning white just the same as they did back when I was a kid. Long time ago now. The world has moved on. Things have changed, and yet here I am, reading my book not caring for anything much at all. Downtown blues. Shimmering pinpricks in the veil above that come and go like those ghosts that remind us of how far we’ve drifted from the versions we used to be. Behind my lazy eyes, she grins wearing a white dress, and in the time it takes for her to blow me a kiss as I light a cigarette, she becomes something else entirely.

A Journal for Damned Lovers UK

A Journal for Damned Lovers US

Anthology UK / Anthology US