I’ll be moving out in less than a week. Her, a few days after that. It’s amicable. All the usual loose ends, tied up. Bills. Outstanding rent. Et cetera, et cetera. I spent most of the weekend chucking shit away. For the next few days, I’ll ponder the lost routines, but not lost love. There wasn’t much of it here in the first place. Perhaps a few short months in the beginning, but then after that, we drifted apart and existed merely as housemates. It’s a shame. After knowing someone for twelve years, you’d think there would be more fire in the pot, but in the end, I was spent. I won’t lay the blame at anyone else’s feet. It takes two to tango, after all, and yet I knew in my gut a long time ago that this relationship wasn’t going to last the distance. It was just a case of going through the motions, thinking that maybe existing as housemates wouldn’t be that bad after all. But, what’s the point in that? And so here we are. Twelve years I’ve known her. We’ve been lovers, enemies, and then lovers again. There have been times when we’ve existed in a small room for weeks on end, unable to get enough of each other, and years when we haven’t spoken a word. I’m sure she’ll always have a place in my heart, and yet, for a time, I thought it was hers to do with as she pleased. Perhaps I was naïve. Love, it seems, has a habit of blinding us to what those on the outside have no problem seeing. There’s a song about islands in the stream. There are many islands. There are many streams. They exist continuously. But that’s for another day.

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