Author S. K. Nicholas

x and i: a novel

a journal for damned lovers vol 1-3

Prose

  • Smile

      I didn’t do much this weekend. Didn’t even change my clothes. Sat there reading and smoking; the larks called to me, but I ignored them. My dad was sprawled out on his bed upstairs. The cancer hasn’t spread, so there’s no need to remove half his face. His back troubles him, however, and reduces… Read more

  • Full Dark

    It’s full dark. The city sleeps alone. A movie plays without sound. The stars burn along with a cigarette as somewhere out there, all my lovers dance in unison. The past isn’t dead. It’s waiting for my touch once more. Beyond oak trees blanketed by midnight wonder, the ones I’ve loved speak to me of… Read more

  • Picture

    Myself and a volcano. All things transitory, passing always like those dirty calender days. Read more

  • The Other

      Out of the shadows, she dances within my drunken hands. Lips kissing beneath rain and scaffolding, the town is ours and always will be. Years from now, this moment will never leave. It never has. Saturday night neon replaced by midnight melancholy by the dim churchyard. All those graves as she led me to… Read more

  • Come Down

    The guy at the gas station hasn’t seen me in a week. He doesn’t know I’ve been on holiday. I didn’t tell him, and he doesn’t ask, but something in our mutual gaze explains it all. He leans on the counter watching the traffic as I enter. He’s bored, and with a not so intelligent… Read more

  • Break

    I’m taking a week off. Going on holiday in an aeroplane over the sea. Providing it doesn’t plunge into the sea, I’ll be back with you in about eight days or so (famous last words I know.) It’ll be my longest break from the blog, and the first time I wont have done any form… Read more

  • Life

    They diagnosed my father with cancer today. He told me calmly. His voice strong, his body a little weaker than it had been a few months ago. It’s in his mouth, a tumour he at first thought was an ulcer. It hasn’t spread, but it’s there. That’s what forty cigarettes a day for three decades… Read more

  • Just This Once

    Things that fall out of reach. A lovers smile misplaced like car keys before the daily slog into work. Being as though I don’t drive, I’ve no idea what that feels like, but I imagine it’s as pointless as everything else. Burn your calenders. Rip out the pages of your diary and stuff them down… Read more

  • Dirty Heart

      The future is an open wound. It’s a wasp crawling up your arm on a warm summers day. In fields of golden corn and sunflowers, she evades my gaze yet her body itches for my touch. The absent lover, always creeping in the shadows. Dormant for so long, it’s so easy to be passive,… Read more

  • Hangovers and Underbellies

      They breed us in factories and office spaces. They tell us what to enjoy- what a life is meant to resemble. All those walking disasters in love with the opulence of their existence. Drown them before it’s too late. Put them out of their misery before I choke on the fumes of their indignity.… Read more