It starts in some strange, recurring dream, where the buildings in my hometown are not stained by history but brand-spanking new, and there in some park beneath a tree that touches the sky, is a girl who would be my own; a girl I once called home. You’re alive for a while with time on your side, then before you know it, you’re no longer a child but a shape wearing a suit. Most make the transition without knowing, and even when they do, they deny it the same way they deny the uncomfortable truths regarding the dastardly card of death. It’s not a dance for them, but a slow descent. It’s a dance for us, though. It’s a dream of a forest and of the glowing lights in the middle of the night that call your name through the window of your room, and even though it’s cold and you’re shivering to the bone, you open the window wide and fly fly fly to those distant, glowing lights. As the vehicle stops in line, I look at those buildings and the ghosts that lurk within. So many stories never to be told. So many affairs of the heart that will disappear like yesterday’s rain. Most let them go, or they don’t see them at all. But those ghosts are us. They’re us as we once were and us as we will be again, and in that park beneath a spreading chestnut tree, there’s a girl dancing just like me. Time gets behind you. Flesh fades then decays, and although what once was will never be again, the least you can do is not give up on your dreams. It’s a leap of faith and a shot in the dark; it’s a coin flicked into a wishing well of stars. Such tiny acts from such foolish hearts, and yet these dreams don’t recede, they always ascend. Flicking my cigarette as the lights change, I close my eyes and see things they’ll never see.

A Journal for Damned Lovers UK

A Journal for Damned Lovers US

Anthology UK / Anthology US