HCE received a lot of high-quality submissions for The Brutal Issue – sadly, too many to fit inside the magazine! So we offered some of our shortlisted contributors the chance to be published on our website.
Keep an eye on our social media for more great writing like this, in the run up to the release of The Brutal Issue…
Pitch Black or I Don’t Remember
Neek Bellott
I remember hanging out with the Irish boys,
I remember they all wore different varieties of the same denim button
-downs and had that Hitler Youth haircut.
I remember the cute little
Asian girl with bleached hair and little
leather hot pants.
I remember someone said “You’ll drink what I give you.”
I remember laughing it off.
Sloppy lap dances and glittery fears.
I remember catching the clock at 2:20am.
I remember a man’s voice I didn’t recognize,
“DON’T YOU DARE FALL ASLEEP, DON’T YOU FUCKIN’ FALL ASLEEP.”
I remember he knew my name, but I didn’t know his.
The back seat of a car. Heavy. So heavy.
I remember staggering down a street.
Tunnel vision. Collapsing
over and over again. Knees blood red.
I remember being cold, freezing cold.
Black, pitch black.
I remember no stars.
No sounds. Like I had no ears.
No dreams.
I remember waking up and it was morning
and I was again staggering down the street again mourning.
No birds chirping. No dignity left.
No cell phone, no wallet, no keys, no jacket, no cherry red lipstick, no crumpled up dollar bills.
I remember thinking, it’s 8:37am and something bad happened to me last night.
