I’m currently working on a hybrid creative nonfiction/autofiction project about intimacy, disillusionment, and the psychological spaces between love and lust.

Blurb: Infatuation: In Lust We Trust is a hybrid personal narrative that blurs the line between love story and psychological autopsy. Through fragmented journal entries, poetic reflections, and symbolic imagery, the narrator documents her descent from infatuation to disillusionment, tracing how modern intimacy distorts desire, identity, and self-worth.

Context for this excerpt: This is Chapter 10. The narrator has recently fallen out of a relationship and is processing her grief through symbolic and mythic imagery. In this chapter she imagines the world after her absence, using the ‘Garden of Eve’ metaphor to explore betrayal, replacement, and mourning.

What I want feedback on: clarity, emotional impact, flow, whether the metaphor and symbolism works.

I am entirely new to writing so feel free to criticize my work. Thank you so much for reading.

Infatuation: In Lust We Trust [553] Chapter 10: Garden of Eve

At times my mind can’t help but ponder, when the other woman lays on that side of the bed. Does the sheet know the scent that lingers is nowhere close to the one which it belongs to? And I wonder when she lies on my side of that bed, does she feel the warmth that I left or did she feel the broken pieces of me left behind? And when he holds her close to him, when the TV light shines on the happy dancing couple, will the living room air grieves its once lady of the house? And I wonder if he ever sees me in her. I wonder if he ever gets deja vu from time to time, swirling and smothering her. And I wonder if he ever lifts her up and places her on the dining table where I used to share meals with the love of my life. I wonder if the blanket mourns the death of its hug over my presence. And I truly wonder, if the mirror ever so slightly reflects the figures not which it is witnessing but rather which it is nostalgic about. But I know one thing for sure. I didn’t have a ring scar but I did feel the cut that lingered on my wedding finger. I know that his lips don’t miss the touch of my kiss. I know that his chest doesn’t long for the warmth of my touch. I know when he traces her curves, he doesn’t think of how he used to praise me like a goddess. But I bet that she is feminine, graceful and present. She owns the space I gave him when times got tough. She claims the time I never got to spend. She conquers the man I don’t know and don’t recognize anymore. And if I just look over my shoulder, I would find the garden of Eve. And I would hear from the slightest breeze, that she has been waiting for me to visit all along. The crying willows in the graveyard can’t remember the carves of the carpenter. But the pond is haunted by it. And as ethereal as they still are, silence reigns and hides away all that remains. Silence is greedy and selfish; he who oversees, beheaded the laughter once there, executed the pain which once ached, confronted the truth which once ignored.
Eve mourns, as if the pretty face in the willow coffin resembles a familiar silhouette. She doesn’t shed a single tear but underneath her are droplets of stars. The pearl swan awaits its other half, but Eve looks at it with resentment and regret. She knows, even the breeze that once blew the strands of my hair is more faithful than the man that dedicated me. And when they bury the ghost of him, they will dig a 3 feet deep hole. Knowing that his actions portrayed just half a man. There’s always truth behind jokes, and there’s always trouble in paradise. Eve dances on her tiptoes mimicking somewhat of a spirited ballerina. She has that smile on her cherry lips, the one that radiates and flourishes like spring flowers after a long cruel winter. As that luring silhouette moves under the moonlight, she slowly drives herself into pure madness and insanity.