The beach scratches my face. The waves. The wind. They attack my senses. Against my better judgment, I light a smoke, and this narrow belly begins to rumble the same as the sea. Stones tumble beneath my feet. I am a giant. I am a dream. Old cafes slide into the swirling waters on either side of me, washed away like the memory of linked fingers over a sticky table in some spit and sawdust pub that no longer exists but somehow does. If I squint, there are brunette curls at my fingertips—shiny teeth reflecting the lights of a fruit machine. We exist on different pages of the same book; our minds entwined around the same idea, our bodies divided all the same, mere dog-eared relics of what might’ve been. It’s a Saturday. Some place in town. But it’s also a Sunday, and I’m traipsing along the best I can as the coffee cup in my hands burns my fingers. The pain is intense, and yet I need it. Without it, my fingers would no doubt fall off. The same as my nose. The same as my cock. Each sip hits me like a shot of vodka, and life momentarily brightens before succumbing to the unescapable grey that wraps around me like the crumbling buildings on the shore. The days of fire have already been and gone. Their memories like songs drifting in with the fog. Sea shanties sung by those once living now long since dead.

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