The smoke on her breath is heavy. Like a mushroom cloud, it hangs above her sullen head in the most heavenly of ways. The motel has a neon sign above it. Although it doesn’t work, strangely enough, the cold, morning sunlight bouncing off the cracked tubing momentarily brings it back to life. She hasn’t washed in days, but in this weather, she gets away with it. Her smell is frozen, the same as her love. The last guy she fucked had gotten rough. Left her belly covered in bruises. He’d had no discernible personality—didn’t even have much of a dick. She just needed contact, and for an empty vessel such as her, the more it hurt, the less she cared about the world inside of her. The sky is blue and clear, like a glacier mint. She coughs and grimaces. Inside her pocket is a cigarette. In her hand, she scrunches it up before releasing it like a caged bird. Removing it from darkness, she brings it to her dry and chapped lips where it sits perched for several minutes while she stands there tilting her head to one side looking at the electricity pylon across the road. It makes the fillings in her teeth sing. The songs are old, like those her grandmother once performed for military men. The arms of the pylon reach out from the horizon of rocks that wraps around her. There is silence, and yet, there are songs—many of nature, and many of loss.

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