Adelaide

Lyros kisses me breathless and then he gets up from the bed.

I lie there, sore and aching, and sated in that way that comes from deep intimacy.

Lyros is always eager to be with me but for some reason, it’s not the way I imagined it would be.

I feel empty inside. There’s a hole I can't fill, a gaping depth I feel is always going to be there, one I will have to banish as soon as possible.

The sound of the showers comes on and I stare at the ceiling as Lyros bathes.

I feel like a newborn child sometimes. Not because anything about me feels new, no. Sometimes I feel there’s a weight on my chest and it gets tighter with each passing day. It’s hard to live with something like that but I do.

I do and it brings me pain and joy at the same time.

The world is new to me.

My memory is fractured in places. There are gaps that I can't seem to fill out. Sometimes I'm not sure if the voices I hear in my head are real or made up. I know some things the same way I know blood flows through my ve