My devil’s haircut attracts curious eyes. In some café, on the periphery of a council estate, slowly sinking into the wasteland of yesterday. It’s winter-like. Stuffy. My lemonade blood bubbles in the throes of a hangover as one version of me makes way for the other while I simultaneously remain the same. The eyes are brown and green. They pick at the pores on my cheeks like talons. Acne kisses. Carpets burned by cigarettes the morning after the night no one remembers. The floor by my feet is splashed with mud. Swirling dots of nothingness that resemble my good intentions. I’m old, like a tree in a park, caked with piss and bird shit. Whatever fits, I guess. These limbs are slimy and devious, but I have lived and I have loved. Not always sincerely, but never less than what I was capable of. I should be in a zoo, or a padded room—my conscience built upon nostalgia and an inability to function without stimulants, forever wishing to slumber once more in the womb. Hibernation is my perfect state. A place where I spend my days looking out the window at the rain with no sense of tomorrow to sully my wistful senses. The coffee they serve is shit, but the burn is what I need, so drink it I do.

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