you said you liked me in cricket whites [calla]

You are destruction incarnate, inhaling smoke into your lungs and holding it there for as long as you dare. Eyes red, a scowl burned onto your face, your breath stale from tobacco and herb. Between a tattered rattan lamp and a sink full of dirty dishes sits you, legs manspread apart on a musty old couch. The eater of worlds herself.

You extend your arm out to the left, stubbing out what was left of your death stick into the cheap coffee table wood. Another black mark to join the constellation of your demise.

There is a shaky knock on the trailer door, but you aren’t in a rush, so you sit for a few seconds longer beneath the haze of tobacco and the stench of beer, before pulling yourself lazily to your feet.

A baby blue hoodie drapes over the back of the one chair in your kitchen (You’re not really sure it is a kitchen). Lazily one of your arms finds it way underneath it, scooping it up over your shoulder and over your tank top. It hangs baggy over your waist, covering your bed shorts, making it almost look as if you had nothing on underneath it.

You open the door with lazy eyes. A short blonde-haired boy waits eagerly, he is toying with the idea of smiling at you, but there’s too much fear mixed in with his excitement for him to try it.

“Good morning!” He says with an audible exclamation mark.

You pity the boy, and he is a boy, although definitely past reaping age, he is not yet a man. And maybe he won’t ever be one. You see his type wandering the town centre, baby faced and jelly spined. The types who wait for you and the band after gigs and expect you to sign things or even have a conversation with them.

You can’t imagine anything worse.

Except maybe for this boy. He’s a different breed, below even that.

“I’ll be back after lunch, have it clean.” You say without a hint of affection.

You grab a pair of leather trousers before leaving the trailer for him to tidy. You don’t care what he gets up to in there, frankly you don’t want to know, all you care about is that someone is doing that for you. For free. Because you’re pretty and famous and you can make boys like him do whatever you want.

What would your Dad think?

You meander towards the old warehouse near your trailer, pulling a pair of old keys from your pants and twisting them sharply in the rusting lock. With a click it opens, the door screams on its hinges as the smell of chemicals and dust invade your nostrils.

A deep sigh exorcises itself from your lungs as you take heavy steps into the room. Your palm glides across the concrete wall until it meets the light switch, which you flick on with muscle memory. Dim amber fills the room, reaching every far corner and casting low shadows beneath the drum-kit and standing instruments around it. The mic stand, the rhythm guitars, and there, on the left, the other part of your soul.

The bass guitar is a mighty instrument, an instrument of chaos, with strings of steel tightly bound. Its body is a work of art, crafted with care, yours painted a deep black, with faint traces of byzantium rooted in the coat. The neck is a bridge to your soul, reaching all the way up to your chin.

You feel your shoulders relax, and a smile grow warmly on your face.

Welcome home, little miss end of all things.