Down a street near where I once lived, the blacklight washes over me. I’m drunk, confused, and semi-hard. Good job it’s dark. The moon shines over buildings that have been gone for years. Their outlines are clearly defined, but when I reach out to touch them, away they go like dandelion florets. Dispersed, like the fragrance of life where now there are bones beneath a gravestone, they distort my senses. I clutch my chest and burst into a fit of sneezes. The street is a secret. No one knows the love that bloomed within its boundaries. No one but me. I’m a vessel. An artefact from a time that rises for no eyes other than mine. These are my ghosts alone. I am an architect of my own misery, but when misery tastes as sweet as this, it may as well be bliss. The liquid seeping from my cock reminds me of my mother. I remember her tears during my early years, and how they brought the rain. It’s raining right now. Sticking out my tongue, the droplets are like pinpricks. Tiny, seismic reminders that I’m both everything and nothing rolled into one.

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