Author S. K. Nicholas

x and i: a novel

a journal for damned lovers vol 1-3

Creative Writing

  • Secret Seconds

    It’s snowing, and the stillness of the moment is time travel. My seed on her chest is a lake. Ancient. Hidden. Godly, like a forest. The blue of her eyes a sunrise, as endless as eternity. The flakes of ice touch my tongue. Fizzing like sweets, they itch my teeth and I giggle like a Read more

  • The Streets

    As the ice melts, the sky swells with memories the shape of childish hands. Momentarily, I’m blinded by innocent love and the need to be held in my mother’s arms. Then comes the spinning world, and the necrotic noise from a crowd of baying mouths hungry for the air in my lungs. People come and Read more

  • Zygomatic Arch

    The wine plays a melody on my bones as if they were the keys of a xylophone. In my zygomatic arch, the memories of outlines spark despite the dampness creeping beneath my clothes. If I squint my eyes, there are shadows of my hands as they once were. They’ve been so many places. Touched so Read more

  • Winding Wanderings

    In the puddles that stretch from my feet to the river, ten years feels like a lifetime. Longer, even. In the broken reflections zigzagging around my soaked shoes, the past and present dance like quarrelsome lovers. Steam snorts from my nostrils, and without realising, I leave a snail trail in my wake—my winding wanderings visible Read more

  • Sunken

    The sky is velvet. The sun mostly unseen. I’m a dinosaur, dead before my time as I roam around a town that burns in the haze of orange streetlights. I am an echo. Like the cries of a dolphin long since dead swallowed by the secretive seas and now little more than sunken bones in Read more

  • Memory Man

    As I sniff the bricks and mortar, a lorry rumbles past. No licence plates and a shadow for a driver. The dust it kicks up swallows me like a fog, shrinking my bones and boiling my envious blood so it resembles a fine sand. Closing my eyes, I’m reminded of the fog of my lover’s Read more

  • Tiny, Seismic

    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 Read more

  • Become Graves

    The graffiti on the walls changes shape with the blinking of my eyes. My eyes are lazy, the same as my feet. I’ve been walking for hours. Perhaps weeks. I can feel the blisters on my toes just about ready to pop. Any second soon they’ll weep like a child. I’m going somewhere, I know Read more

  • Hidy-hole

    In the underpass, as the sun falls from the sky, I’m the greatest artist the world has ever known. But by the time I emerge into a blizzard of snow, life has passed me by and I’m just another bum looking for love in all the wrong places. It stinks of piss. Can smell it Read more

  • Reckless Creatures

    Following the wall, I trace the way with my fingers until I stumble into a coffee shop. The pictures on display are like snow globes. When I reach out and touch them, they come alive, sending my mind spiralling into a frenzy of nostalgic thoughts. The place is buzzing. The people are bees. It used Read more