Blowing into her ear, I open the door and tell her to see what I see. She doesn’t want to. She fights against it the way a cat resists a soapy bath, but I go ahead and dig my fingers in while chewing her lobe, and when she groans, I hold her chin and steady that gaze until it rests on what lies within. As the tears roll down her cheeks, she does her best to escape my grasp, but I’ve got a hold and won’t let go. When I kiss her neck and bite her flesh until it bleeds, I tell her to focus on what hurts because it’s the stuff that hurts you need to finger most, so finger it the way you do when it’s just you and your ghosts. She keeps trying to break free, but as the music from the other side finds its way to her ears, she settles in my arms. As those chords lick her skin the same as I, she wipes her eyes and sways. My hands are all over her. They lift up her top and unlatch her bra, and as she stands there unable to breathe, I’m massaging her breasts doing my best to ride the fine line between lover and creep. She says some words, but they’re not for me, they’re for the darkness beyond. That same darkness she carries inside for she’s a carrier the same as I. It’s why I hold her. It’s the reason I seek her out as the world spins regardless. As the rest pass through life without ever knowing the reasons why, here we are, out of sight and out of mind, flirting with the void that speaks in a language we can’t understand but of which we feel in our bones. These bones that tremble the closer we come to that sweet and terrible song.

A Journal for Damned Lovers UK

A Journal for Damned Lovers US

Anthology UK / Anthology US