In the morning comes a tinned breakfast. In the tin comes beans, sausages, a burger, some weird egg thing and a few scrawny scraps of bacon. It’s unhealthy as fuck. It’s an abomination, but it eases the hangover, and with each bite, life feels a little better, sorta. Too many cigarettes last night. Stomach’s suffering, so I pop a few peppermint capsules like a hardened druggy. After my tinned wonder, I shit out the world and moan with joy as if living were a beautiful thing. Making myself a cup of tea, I place a sugar-free Red Bull in the freezer. Lighting a smoke, I drink the tea then down the Red Bull so it gives me brain freeze. It’s all so useless. Everything. Stepping into the garden, the shadows retreat and the blades of grass make my feet tingle. There are frogs looking at me, and worms and shit. They say you can cut a worm in half and it will keep living. They say daddy long legs have poison, but their bite can’t penetrate flesh. I don’t know what to believe nowadays. Moving into an area of sunshine, I stand there looking up at the sky shivering in my dressing gown.

She opens her eyes then closes them again. Then one eye opens but ever so slowly. It narrows at the clock on the bedside table. Time is useless, and yet we can’t help being slaves to its every whim. The sheets smell of dead time. That peculiar scent of bodies and dust and a handful of dreams never uttered out loud. She rolls onto her back and looks up at the ceiling. It used to be pure white, but now it’s a little yellow. Time again. And cigarette smoke. That as well. She listens out for the beat of her heart and is alarmed to find there isn’t one. No, wait, it’s there, but it’s ever so quiet. Like that of a tiny animal. A mouse or a rat, all curled up in its cage waiting for food and the warm, gentle hands of its owner. She decides to make some coffee to help quicken her poor heart but doesn’t have the energy to go downstairs, so she continues to lie there. The window’s open. Through it comes a slight breeze that moves the semi-drawn curtains. There’s a whole world out there. So many untold avenues ready to be walked, and yet they’ve all been walked by someone else. Everything the same. The whole thing a sham. Stretching her arms, she kicks her legs and wriggles her toes before getting up.

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.co.uk

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.com