Sunday morning seeps into existence. Another hangover. Another new haircut. My tongue is swollen from too many shots of flaming Sambuca. The woman on TV reading the news has a chipped front tooth that’s kinda cute, but I can see straight through her. Dog Kaput. Much masturbation derived from stillborn pleasure. My liver is shrunk. God is a worm. The bar last night wriggled with people, but not one of them looked at me. They looked through, but not at me. There was music. It sounded like an orchestra of cat farts. The floor was sticky with beer and piss; my beer, and my piss. My pillow, upon waking, was sticky with sweat. Nervousness, it seems, sweats out of me even when I’m cold and in dreams. It clings to me the same way the stink of unwashed clothes wraps itself around my pale bones. Like milk, they resemble the moon. The same as the moon, my blemished teeth crack like ice cubes beneath a July sun. I once knew a girl whose tears tasted like holy water. She was as sharp as a knife. I don’t miss her temper, but I’d give anything to see that smile of hers swell like the skies come the fifth of November. In the doorway opposite a house of leaves, she puts on her lipstick as shadows play around her feet. There’s no rhyme or reason for her addiction. The streets have their way, and she has hers. In this town, at this hour, she is the moonlight, and she shines as bright as a good deed. Such deeds are hard to come by. They don’t show themselves often. The door behind her has a keyhole. The wind blows through it and licks her neck, and in return, she licks the wind. French kissing as she taps the ash from her cigarette onto the stone slabs, the sounds of town from far away rattle like old soda cans spinning down the street in search of home. Her black tights are as black as the sky, and the stars that shine are the beads hanging from her navel—swinging like Orion’s belt as the past becomes future once more.

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