Author S. K. Nicholas

x and i: a novel

a journal for damned lovers vol 1-3

DamnedLovers

  • Burst Eardrums

    The veins in her chest reach out like the branches of a tree. She has a fever, not to mention a sore throat and a bottle of Benylin in her bag filled with brandy. It makes her burp, like a tiny fish. There’s a comet somewhere. As it passes, it shakes the building housing the Read more

  • Paper Cup

    The darkness of morning, interrupted by a sudden wave of white. It didn’t last long. The snowfall was heavy, though. Not heavy enough to settle, but enough to block out the world and make the morning seem somewhat beautiful, and not the maze of grey that it so often is. Some of my favourite memories Read more

  • Adrift

    On a balcony overlooking town, the steam from our cups of coffee obscures the faces of those walking below. It’s freezing. Our bones knock and jive. The alleys are swimming with trash. Amid the trash are bumbling heads staring at the ground on their way to the entrances of a hive of thrift stores—the kind Read more

  • Skinny Wrists

    The outlines of these moments run like mascara. The mascara she bought from Boots on her lunch break, along with a pack of tampons and a sugar-free Red Bull. The flesh of strangers smears the exposed skin of her skinny wrists. Wrists attached to fists that shake at the sky for no particular reason. The Read more

  • Tristen

    At times, reality is like forgettable porno, all golden showers in showers with tiles all mouldy and women not women but vehicles for the desires of men who are not men but grisly balls of metallic cotton wool. To touch the stuff is murder. Men make murder, as well as boredom. If only I were Read more

  • Scrawny

    Drunken footsteps echo through stairwells in the early hours of the morning. Stairwells that have witnessed a thousand casual histories as if it were no big deal. Which it isn’t. And which it is, because every footstep tells a story, and in the end, our stories are all we will ever be. The world ends Read more

  • Pusher

    Civil servants. Slaves. Tiny bits of dust clinging to imaginary dignity. Wine in bellies trudging down streets that best belong in memory but stick around regardless. Like a dead cigarette on the bottom of your shoe or a piece of gum stuck to your wobbly arse. She bleeds. She is a woman. It’s a full Read more

  • No Strings

    It’s a slow day. The kinda day for a slow suicide. The kinda day that has a sky ready to piss all over your hungover head. Grey this. Grey that. The corpse of a fox haunts, as does the image of a bruised baby with broken limbs on page fourteen of some paper or other. Read more

  • Like Dragons

    Suddenly, without warning, the lights in town went out. Sometime in the early hours it was, but not so early that everyone was asleep. It was Saturday, but technically Sunday. The shady bit between where shady shit happens. The kind that makes you grit your teeth and snarl at the moon in a heady, fleshy Read more

  • Soundtrack

    Sat outside drinking coffee, we watch the air from our mouths dance with the steam rising from the cups we clench within frostbitten fingers. The fingers on my right hand have gone numb, so I press them against the coffee cup as hard as I can. The sky is bright. January is a dead month, Read more