Standing over the sink, I absent-mindedly gaze into next door’s kitchen window. The walls are the colour of chip fat. The painting on the wall over the sink, crooked and appalling. Vague, abstract shapes, framed not to benefit the image but rather, to appear sophisticated to the untrained eye. Groaning like someone double my age as the bones in my legs creek like the wooden floorboards beneath my feet, the shed in the garden catches my attention. It’s a small affair. A holy relic for the spidery dead. Drifting away while scrutinizing its exterior, I inhale for several seconds. When I exhale, my grandparents’ house swallows me in a sugary mouthful, and as the steam from their kettle wraps around my limbs, everything is okay, and my pain slips away like rain down the window pane. When it’s time to breathe back in, I resist the same as I always do. Resistence is the idol I worship above all others, but oh, how it makes me sad. Evening makes way for morning. Calling in sick, the hours of recuperation are spent masturbating to daytime TV. Cigarettes stir my reflux and I roll around like a worm on a carpet adorned with magnificent downward spirals mirroring the curls of my hair. Also the hairs on my chin. And those on my chest. As Cobain once said, I’m worst at what I do best, so I forget about everything and rest my weary eyes as the day raps against my head like the knuckles of a distant lover, reminding me of all my imperfections.

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