Beneath the table in the restaurant, I place my hand upon her knee. She tells me it gives her the shivers. The landscape in her is the same as the one in me, riddled with romance and insecurity. Sometimes, it’s desolate, other times as green as an ancient forest tickling the lungs of an animal birthed, lived, dieded and obliterated out of existence a billion years before we were swimming in the balls of our fathers. Outside, the wind whips around the watchful trees, and whenever someone pops out for a smoke, we wince as it reaches in through the open doors, scratching our startled faces. She speaks with a smile. Her words are musical and light. Like feathers or blades of grass in a garden beneath dancing, childish feet. Her drink of choice is fruity. She declines a glass with ice and drinks straight from the bottle. Her mouthfuls are small and polite. Her demeanour is pleasant. Mine is deviant. There’s dirt beneath my fingernails and a worm in my heart. The TV over the bar shows images of war. War in the streets of foreign lands. Bombs on kids. Bombs on hospitals. I don’t know what any of it means. I don’t even know what yesterday means, let alone today, in some faraway place, where the flesh of my picking fingers has never crept.

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