Without love, and a thirst to understand where it came from, we’re nothing but dog turds boiling on the sidewalk beneath an angry sun. Adulthood has never once suited me. It doesn’t fit my frame at all. I wish I had some baby teeth left, so I could place them beneath my pillow and be innocent once again. My wishes are so vacant, though. I’m nothing but air. Nothing but lonely atoms growing colder the older I get. But you make me sing. Or at least, you make me believe I can sing, and all it takes is a partial glimpse of your face, and I know my reasons to remain outweigh those for leaving. And you know how much I wish I could leave—to fly into the sky and disappear into that picturesque ocean of stars as it lulls my tired mind like the waves of the ocean lapping the shore. I’ve been here before. This situation. This shade of being. You know, whenever I’m sat smoking outside in the early hours, willing with all I have for something to show me the way, those silent stars speak to me the way you once did as our heads lay facing each other on cool pillows bathed in the colour of flames. Those hours are behind me, the moment faded like an old photograph, yet the fire still burns, in my brain, and at the tips of my fingers as I seek you out in the smoke that drifts from my open mouth to the infinite blackness above.

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