He used to call me Enoh Poxas. I remember our first meeting. Times were different then, there was always the scent of passion in the air. Everything was romantic, a single touch could send chills down a person’s spine, and a single sound could change the world. There was something to live for back then. I suppose you could say that I lived for him. Everything, for him. We had such different lives, come from so many different places. He was the artsy-type. You know: beret, heart-on-his-sleeve, tortured soul kind of guy. Me? I was quiet, reserved. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say, I was just waiting for the right person to say it to. It was him. With him I could do anything, I was loud, flamboyant. He made me what I was by moulding me in to him. It was as if he’d spent years and years of his own life devoted to making me come out of my shell. He was a snake charmer and I was the snake, lured to him with his softly spoken words.

“Enoh Poxas, Enoh Poxas.”  He would lay me down, holding me tightly, whispering my name. It was love. I loved him. Not in the ordinary way, it was deeper than that. I was restless, driven crazy with a fever; a passion that starts from to top and works itself down in to your very core. A breath on my neck could send me to places I never thought that I could reach. He was my power, my fuel. Before him there was no reason for my being. I was a book waiting to be opened, a story waiting to unfold. He did this to me. He made me think that I was alive. I was living a lie. I was a nothing. I let him drag me in to his world when I was a broken wreck, he restored me as though he cared and then left me to face the world on my own. I hate him. I love him. I loved the thought of him and me spending our lives together. He’d go grey and I’d lose my shine, but we’d be together. I wouldn’t mind because I would know that what we had was real.

I’ll tell you how it started. That was the day when I started to live. I gave in to him straight away. I was on my own a in a corner of a shop. I used to refuse to make contact with anyone, let anyone get close to me. I lived as my own being. I was detached and unreachable. He made that change. A musty smell was lingering in air. It was the kind of smell that one would imagine a dusty old diary to smell of, secretive and magical, filled with memories.  It was the perfect start to our love affair. He cautiously approached me, a gleam in his eye. I was a target which he longed pursue. I saw it, in his eyes, madness. He reeked of ambition and drive. I knew that there would be no way out. I was scared, terrified. I’d never been looked at like that before. As he drew closer towards me I could see a smile forming from the corners of his mouth. His lips were beautiful. They were my favourite thing about him. He grabbed me, I didn’t stop him. He pressed his lips firmly on to mine. They were plump and moist. They brought me to life. I felt like Sleeping Beauty, finally awoken from a spell. He was my Prince, my hero. He knew that he had control over me. I should have known that a connection this strong and this beautiful would be difficult to keep forever, however much I wanted it to.

The years went on, and our love grew stronger. I was now living with him. A cheap, tacky little flat on the wrong side of town. It was paradise. The walls were a dirty white, barely shown through the collages he’d spend his evenings working on. The floor was white-washed floorboards suffocated with art. Here and there were paint splashes, scattered rainbows. We only had the bare necessities. We couldn’t afford a television, then again, who could? He told me that the television was just a phase, one which would die in a decade or so, so we’d live without. He believed it would stifle his creativity, and that he’d become a drone. He could never be himself; until he’d pick up a paint brush. That’s when he came alive. It was like watching a miracle occur, suddenly all of this colour would appear on the canvas and it would just make sense. It was as if he was inventing new colours as he went along; and yet he’d leave them lying on the ground as if they meant nothing to him. Then he would string me through his pain.

Sometimes he’d just sit with me and cry.  I don’t think he even knew what he was sad about. He’d spend hours trying to explain. I don’t think that it was on my behalf, more his. He wanted to find out why he would hurt so much. I suppose people need to do that sometimes. I never used to let my emotion get in the way. I held in all of my worries and sadness so that I’d have room for his. I grew to realise that he was just a child. I was just a tool, trying to help fix him. He used to tell me that I was the one keeping him alive, that when he touched me he’d feel a warm sensation start from his fingertips, and it would spread throughout him. So, whenever he’d feel sad he would grab at me, often too tight. I don’t think he really knew what he was doing. All that he knew was when he was beating me, he could cope. So he would. Like a child he found that he could block the pain by using something to pleasure him, but unlike a child he wouldn’t ask for sweets or love; he would throw me against a wall. Not to hurt me, but to feel the buzz in his fingertips.

One day it went too far. He woke up in the early hours of the morning. I could hear him rustling away. He packed a few items of significance in to a battered old backpack: his favourite paintbrush, his dusty old beret, a photograph of his parents and a note that he’d just finished writing. He’d rented a car the night beforehand; it was to be my first and last car journey. He stuffed me, along with the backpack, in to the boot of his car, and he drove. It seemed like we’d been driving for hours. Where were we now? I had no idea. All that he wanted to do was drive. Hours more passed, until we reached the waterside. He didn’t stop. Perhaps he expected for us to glide along the water. Perhaps he thought he’d change his mind. Perhaps he really did think that he could perform miracles. He couldn’t. With every second more water filled the car. I was silently screaming. Even from in the boot I could hear him sobbing. Had his plan gone wrong? Or were they tears of joy? Maybe he was just saying goodbye to the world. He’d never gone anywhere during our time together. We’d stayed the same. He was still a nobody, and I was still a nobody’s lover. He brought me to life. He killed me. There we lay in the bottom of the ocean, where breath doesn’t exist. Eventually they found us; a man in the driver’s seat of a silver Mercedes, and his saxophone in the boot.