Bounding along the street, the tree snatches at the sky with its branches as if trying to pull down the stars. It doesn’t succeed, but I do. On tiptoes, I wrap one arm around the trunk and with the other, reach as high as I can into the swirling, infinite sea of mystery. Or is it a sea of memory? I think it’s a sea of memory, for the stars I pluck from it are the same ones from my past. Not as they are now, but as they existed back then, on those magical evenings from my youth when, in some alcoholic haze, I set fire to the night as if such a thing were the only thing possible. Down here, those nights—those stars—are long gone, but in my pocket, I can keep them safe from harm. Rattling around like loose change, they collide like planets, and in these collisions, the still point of the universe swirls within my grasp. With streetlights twisting like the storks of flowers torn by giant gusts of billowing winds, the tree descends the hill on which we live. As the dim buildings fade behind us, the light ahead spreads across the horizon like a rainbow. It widens my eyes until they’re as big as the eyes of the owls flapping their wings alongside us. Turning to Meeko, I see her eyes are just as big; they swirl like Catherine wheels as the light of the forest grows within them like the bombs of god.

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