The leaves in the park are the faces I’ve known but no longer know. They dance and float around as I pass through in silence, head down and dreaming of a secret someone who inspires within me a secret smile. It’s been a while, and yet, what is time really, but a bland invention ushered in to shatter the illusion of magic. I don’t care much for time, but as for magic, I bow down at its altar and pray long into the night. The sky is the belly of God. Its guts are the memories of everything we have done. It’s a canvas. It’s a movie. It’s a kiss between lips that shouldn’t kiss but kiss regardless. In my pocket is a sheet of paper. On it, I write down my thoughts in the face of the apocalypse. Most of them I scrawl out, but there are some worth keeping, some that seep through, giving me a reason to seek out the reason why I keep breathing when it would be easier to fill my pockets with stones and walk into the ocean, alone and alone and alone. A hundred words. A hundred drawings of secret symbols. The drawings used to be paintings back when I was young and free, but now I’m old and chained to formality. I remember things, but the more I hurtle through space, the less I’m sure of what happened and what I imagined happened. Sometimes, looking back at yesterday is like watching a movie about somebody else’s life. I recognise the events, the places and faces, and yet, it feels removed, and the more it feels removed, the less tethered I am to what once made me feel real. Now, I feel neither here nor there. I’m nowhere. Like a gust of wind, or a rogue planet, drifting through space, a slave to no sun.

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