It’s true what Meeko says, y’know. You don’t need an audience. The only person in the world who needs to know the validity of what you think and feel is the one you find looking back in the mirror. And yet to show others the meaning of your heart and mind is the most liberating of things. If you ask me, it’s the sole endeavour of the artist—the one thing that helps them to make sense of who and what they are. It’s a selfish thing. An egotistical thing, and yet, what a beautiful thing it is to enable others to view you as you view the life that dances before your eyes. Something like that. And something like how a falling tree still makes a sound if no one is around to hear it, yet how sad that the world might not see these sparks of magic that have the potential to transform a person’s life entirely. Am I a falling tree? I’m certainly up a tree, that’s for sure. I could quite easily climb this tree and climb back down again and resume my usual antics. The world would keep spinning, and everything would be as it was, but I want to do things differently. Plus, it would do others good to see someone walking a less trodden path. It might inspire them to find a less trodden path of their own. Losing myself in the sea of neon signs that shimmer and ripple like waves, Meeko reaches down a hand. Wiggling her fingers, she kisses her teeth at me as if I were a cat, and without further ado, I hoist myself upwards.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US