In the park next to the house I don’t live in anymore, but which I visit every night in my sleep, the girl I went to uni with who wore French-style dresses is spitting at the sky. She’s not really there. Well, she is but she isn’t. Her scent lingers, and her voice echoes around the trees, but the outline of her body can only be seen in my mind. If I recall, her teeth were uneven and discoloured, but she was beautiful and reeked of a world I didn’t understand and still don’t to this day. In her rucksack, she kept a plastic bag full of used tampons. On occasion, when she would smuggle vodka into the art studios, she would get drunk and show them to me. She was most proud and would giggle at the faces I would pull when she shoved them in my face. Her fingernails were painted black. They were often chipped, but it was okay, because they looked better that way. She ate nothing but noodles and chewed four packets of gum a day and swallowed pills that looked like Tic Tacs, but I knew they weren’t Tic Tacs because when she gave one to me, and it dropped into my belly like a stone in a well, I saw demons and pyramids before shrinking to the size of the bean between her legs. I never saw her vagina, but I tasted her mouth. The tiny hairs on her upper lip tasted of crumbling cemetery gates. Her teeth, like curls of butter, slowly melting on slices of golden toast, nibbled my lips until my toes curled in ecstasy. I still see her, you know. Down darkened streets and in foggy parks, when I’m on my way into work and the world is yet to rise.

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