“I claim you like a pebble on a beach. You are a smooth weight in my hand carried for a period of pleasure then forgotten, captive in a dusty bottom drawer.”
Back Here.
“Then, I see your face and I no longer have any desire to fight for my next breath. Your touch burns my skin. I feel your fist against my cheekbone.”
She
“Wrecked women / Screaming at us, in pain / And fear / But men sway to their hurt …”
A Letter to Survivors
“Seeing these words in his handwriting was the only truth that could have ever convinced me that I really was in an abusive relationship …”
Easter
“At my back the blade refracts. I feel the rush.”
Munting Behind The Shed
“and as i tried to / close windows / in your head / i think i / instead / smashed them …”
Of Bookshelves and Barometers
“Victor Mott is perchance the worst salesman to ever exist. And yet, he’s perfect.”
Imagining
“it’s not about my physical pain /
it’s the pain of their disbelief.”
I Still Wanted To Love You Until The End
“In the darkness, I still lie on my side of the bed. By doing that, you’re still here, sleeping next to me.”
Hitch
This is an extract from the beginning of Kathryn’s debut novel Hitch, which will be published by Penguin Random House Australia in 2019.