Pilgrim
by Tommy Rowlands
I know he’s wandering.
Even asleep, I fear abandonment.
But I wasn’t built to be alone.
I’m not sure I was built at all. Maybe I arrived fully formed. Just like this. A simple
line, unwavering.
Skulking about the empty spaces, in my body lives a constant howl. It never
ceases, silent as it is to him.
The drone of the extractor fan stirs me tonight. Invading my dreamless slumber
like a mosquito. For a moment I think I’m back in our home.
The home where hornets nested in the chimney, that summer when things
remained the same and we pretended they were changing.
This is also home, but less so.
It smells like someone I don’t know yet; someone I don’t like the smell of.
He says that it smells like me and I don’t disagree.
Right now though, he doesn’t talk.
Or if he does it’s not to me.
I watch him read the book.
Like a bad actor, he flicks the pages too quickly, unaware that the book is upside
down. His eyes are open.
That’s what unnerves me the most.
If I took a photograph, he’d look just like him but in real life he’s somewhere else.
Someone else.
Not mine.
In Edinburgh I met Benji.
Women’s underwear. Big cock.
He told me he liked trampolines and being fisted.
I came in his mouth.
Guilt tastes bitter.
I was not built to wander.
Tommy Rowlands is a London based writer of contemporary fiction and poetry.
I know he’s wandering.
Even asleep, I fear abandonment.
But I wasn’t built to be alone.
I’m not sure I was built at all. Maybe I arrived fully formed. Just like this. A simple
line, unwavering.
Skulking about the empty spaces, in my body lives a constant howl. It never
ceases, silent as it is to him.
The drone of the extractor fan stirs me tonight. Invading my dreamless slumber
like a mosquito. For a moment I think I’m back in our home.
The home where hornets nested in the chimney, that summer when things
remained the same and we pretended they were changing.
This is also home, but less so.
It smells like someone I don’t know yet; someone I don’t like the smell of.
He says that it smells like me and I don’t disagree.
Right now though, he doesn’t talk.
Or if he does it’s not to me.
I watch him read the book.
Like a bad actor, he flicks the pages too quickly, unaware that the book is upside
down. His eyes are open.
That’s what unnerves me the most.
If I took a photograph, he’d look just like him but in real life he’s somewhere else.
Someone else.
Not mine.
In Edinburgh I met Benji.
Women’s underwear. Big cock.
He told me he liked trampolines and being fisted.
I came in his mouth.
Guilt tastes bitter.
I was not built to wander.
Tommy Rowlands is a London based writer of contemporary fiction and poetry.