All the places ever known to me, squashed between the pages of a book. As flat as pancakes—as flat as photographs showing a depth of colour but never a depth of feeling. Staring at the ceiling, I see beyond. Stars. Moons. Days that exist in my peripheral vision like the thrashing tails of excitable dogs long lost to my itchy fingers. Moments on my lips tasting like a drunken sugar kiss. There’s a brief burst of song and then an echo to last a lifetime. In these hours between night and day, thoughts are too slippery by far. I say things I don’t mean and mean things I don’t say. The silences between conversations are eerie. They push me further away. My memories of these times are as real as touch, but when I touch them, they burst like soap suds. Running my tongue between the gaps in the floorboards, I find a strand of hair. It’s not one of mine. It’s one of hers. I put it with all the others. I’m saving them for a future day. I don’t know what will happen on this day, or even if I’ll live to face it, but it will come about the same as a day always does. We are relics before we are even born, and yet each time we love, we exist in a state of flux preventing our hearts from turning to stone. And so we roam, in search of that someone to keep our insides as fluid as rain sliding down the windowpane.

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