At my feet, a row of ants devours a dying bee. I’m drunk and don’t know where I am. The ants carry the bee off in a ceremony I’m not privy to. I once buried a bee beneath a tree. It was a gentle, touching act, born not out of the need to be seen but rather wishing to be tender in a time of indifference. The innocence of my childhood was traded in long ago. Lost now. Long gone. Kaput. Like the block of garages reduced to a sea of trash and porno mags near where my grandparents lived. I see it in black and white. Like the images of those lusty limbs. Dangerous and exotic. Something I feared and wanted in the same breath. Something belonging to a world I wasn’t yet ready for but which now consumes me. The memory of my grandparents’ kitchen is crackly. Like a radio. The kitchen smells of chip fat. There’s a feeling of contentment in the air I’ve never felt since and probably never will again. For a second it overwhelms me. Then, I’m back here again, down in it like a junky without junk. There are polaroids in shoeboxes—of body parts dripping with sweat. Of limbs doing things the outside world will never see. Secrets are only interesting if they’re kept secret, like how love is only love when it’s with the one, and not any old someone who happens to come along. The ants nibble my toes before crawling up my legs. The field of green exists in the here and now, but to me, it’ll always be a ‘90s dream. The fresh, green grass of yesterday, caressing my face. The heady scent of nectar, intoxicating. Then, in a gust of wind, here comes July beaming its eternal smile from afar as my younger self climbs those endless branches to reach the Sunday sun.

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