The Bank Loan
the fucking heat doesn’t shift. sweat pooling around my collarbones. another dream. the third one since Monday. waking up with the sheet twisted tight around the shins. I can’t remember the script of it, just a hum behind the ears when the eyes snapped open. nothing else moving. not even the tap dripping into the
The Mirror
she starts the day with a pot of turmeric tea. it steams up the window. a half-arsed apology to the liver after the whisky kicked it to pieces all night. outside, the Greenock rain drives straight into the tar. another Sunday. at the table, she thinks about the mirror from the local paper. ten quid.
Train to Newport
I sit here half-dead on this rattling train to Wales, and my mind starts cranking out its cheap carnival movie, clear as the sour smell drifting from the toilet in the empty carriage ahead. there I was. cotton candy in the air, popcorn grease, the merry-go-round wheezing like an old whore on her last trick.
Jupiter Outside my Window
two forty-five in the goddamn morning. I’m sitting with an empty mug; the crumbs of a biscuit packet scattered like dead soldiers across Shayne and Martin’s kitchen table. three of the bastards, maybe four—I lost count somewhere between the second refill and the third. now my mouth tastes like the bottom of a hamster hutch,
The Night Watchman
the room was dead cold, but it drew you in anyway, the same way you’ll drink the sticky dregs from a flat bottle left on a sill just for the short buzz. she lay next to me, a wet catch in her chest that came and went with every breath. cold skin. she didn’t open