Through the doorway as her keyboard rattles and raps atop a table with wobbly piles of books for legs, the stars shine and a moment presents itself. As her squidgy nose runs like a tap, she wipes it on her sleeve. The sleeve is cotton, adorned with zigzag patterns that remind me of old Scooby-Doo cartoons. The snot glistens in the rays of light coming through the window, resembling the membrane of spacetime smeared across my groin first thing in the morning. Her left hand did it. Didn’t take long. Those tender bones covered in milky flesh worked me into a frenzy producing a pool of lukewarm fluid containing futures that bud only for us. They took me to a place down by the river—a place full of wonder and loss. The river twists and turns in many places until it meets the garden outside the bedroom window where hungry birds peck the carrion that surrounds so abundantly. The carrion in question was alive only a day or so gone. It teemed the same as the seed that shoots from my cyst-riddled balls. The decaying bodies of tiny animals still harbour life, but the life is not their own. Parasites one and all.

She hasn’t washed for days. It’s the middle of summer, and every time she walks into town, she smells funky upon her return—like a cream cake left on the kitchen counter in full glare of the star above. It might still be edible, but probably not. You’d still give it some thought, though, because, despite the smell, a cream cake is all a greedy heart desires. As I stare at something in the doorway which isn’t there, I realise that all things take you back to the beginning. For most, the start is the opposite to the end, but for an artist, these moments dance upon the same page. The pages have no numbers, but they have a scent—the scent is her. If you’re looking for truth, you must cut yourself open. You won’t ever get back what’s gone, but in those greedy guts of yours, you can find a way to save yourself from the same fate as those who were once like you. In the doorway, there are many shapes. They move to her words—words that stir my world even though she’s yet to finish her first draft.

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