There is a thief in the willows, fog tangled in her hair. She is searching for a kill a target a mark a sign. I left it there a long long time ago. Ages, eons perhaps. Well before recorded history at any rate.

 

The innocence of the waterline is at stake. As she comes down the river all the leaves are still. I have slipped beneath the grey mud of the bank but am afraid the sound of my heart will give me away. To set in stone is to silence.

 

My heart is plucked from the clay, washed in the river. The grey is removed and the stone polished. The thief hangs my heart on a gold chain about her neck.

 

Being heartless and therefore blind, I drift into the stream. Washed away by repeated flooding, heading for lowest ground, seeking depth.

 

In stillness all is clear. I am searching for a mark long erased.

 

 

 

As the losses accumulate, my circle of fear expands. I am getting harder to speak with share with be with.

 

She hides in crowds. Readily spied, unapproachable. Hackles up, overly alert, I venture into the new city. None touch me, few approach. I push through the sea leaving a wake of swirling faces and unheard laughter.

 

I cannot – I refuse to – understand the language. Signs are piled high in strange flowing script. Assaulted by neon I seek refuge in a dark doorway. The entrance to a shop filled with wonderful foreign scents.

 

A wizened old man, a woman of indeterminate age and beauty, a girl unsure of her changes, a boy too sure of his cock – the proprietor is all these. I am given a cobalt blue bottle with a glass stopper redolent of cinnamon, of cloves, of forest and river.

 

The glass shimmered, winked, grew heavy and opaline. Drawn through its crystal, a heart to be possessed.

 

I wind my hand round the stone, drowning its light in loops of blood. Fire leaps, sears my flesh. Raging blindly I hurl the stone through blackness, creating suns and comets. A universe of pain and privilege longing for chaos.