18 :

A world without women is the world I used to live in. They used to be here, in this plane, the world I lived in, and then one day they ceased to be on my frequency, faded away with only a dim memory of where they were, without even a trace of evidence bar a fading recollection.

Women are the ghosts in my life. They haunt my every second, define my existence. They are impossible, untouchable, and whilst they exist in the physical space and time as I do, they simply appear not to exist on the same physical plane. Unable to interact, their absence is like a presence.

I am haunted by women I used to know. The imprint of their body against the bed I now sleep alone in. The tampons left underneath the sink in the haste to Abandon Relationship.

I didn’t want to be in this world. A world without soft edges. Without internal decorations. Without warmth. A world without feminity. A world without softness. A world without love. The world no longer has soft colours. Without excitement, companionship, trust or curves. A world of hard sharp edges, a world of sole functionality, of black shelving, a world of right angles, alphabetical filing. A world of remote controls and war movies.

Designed by men, everything is harsh, and strictly functional. Made of square edges, greys and blacks, full of knobs and buttons. A world of concrete, of harsh deadlines, faxes, emails.

My room is a single mans room. Everything has a purpose, a shape that defines it. Everything is there for a reason. There is no pot-pourri, whatever the fuck that is, no decoration, no softness. No Just For The Fuck of It.

Without a balancing touch, you try to define your personal space as an extension of the self, a space without softness, a space where things are there because they have to be, not because they should be. A house is a machine for living in.

In this land without women, only the masculine exists. Its not that I don’t want a woman, I would trade all this for the soft placebo of a relationship in the blink of an eye. It’s just... this is my empire. And even if I don’t particularly like it, its the way I’ve made things. My little empire. I walk the line. A delicate balance between solitude and soulmates. Between method and madness. Between love and hate – constant warring factions battle out for control of my life, and all I can do is to try and prevent either side from winning the battle. I tried to keep it my life from veering out of control.

It didn’t always work. I was falling. And I wanted to.