At four in the morning, the lines disappear. There’s indistinct radio chatter. Conversations circling my head like cartoon birds. I’m somewhere, but don’t know where. On a dot of dust floating through space, but also in her arms, on a rainy day where the streets flood and the bones from my past rise until they rap against the bedroom window waking my sorry, pale ass. The knuckles clink like wine glasses sharing poison. As the shadows stroke my face, the minutes stand still. It could be today or yesterday. It’s hard to know. There’s much I don’t show. The bone in my left arm aches. The big bone. Grey like whale blood. It throbs like a bitch. The throbbing reminds me of old Sundays spent hungover in my tiny university room huddled by the radiator trying to keep warm. There’s nothing like death to remind us why we need to keep living. It’s why we’re slaves to sex, because life without it is like trying to sing without words. The bone in my arm hums to the moon. I’m a poor man without the magic of his youth, yet the shine of make-believe is still with me. It fizzes in the wires outside the window. The wires resemble the strings of a spider’s web. Or vaginal hairs. Perhaps both.

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