extracts and apologies; eternal return

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Bed was the place they talked the most. Not with the hushed filth of lovers. She pressed her lips into the musk of his chest. In that place not one soul in the world could see her face. As she spoke her mouth twisted.

I am struggling, she said. Everything feels hard. A trial . I’m finding it difficult to see the lightness in things. He stroked her hair.

I’m not stupid, she whispered. I know that ultimately life is meaningless -that we have to give it meaning. But I am tired of the looking for meaning being so hard.

When she was younger it had been different. Then all it took was a switch in her head, a change of perspective. Pressed and hidden against skin and hair she suddenly had in mind her own story of the night butterfly.