The Never Novel by Irys

Excerpt from a novel I will never write | Instagram: thenevernovel | Substack: thenevernovel

[thenevernovel]

I often wonder what manner of man I would have become, had fate not bound me so young. However I dare not wonder long, should the answer prove some stranger better than myself.

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

[thenevernovel]

July left with your name still on my lips. August will bury it deeper.

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

[thenevernovel]

When I dream of you, I wake angry.

Why do dreams end?

Why must I return to this world

where you do not exist beside me?

I beg sleep to take me back.

I plead with my own mind to return

to that brief, impossible place.

I go on, half here and half elsewhere,

between waking and wanting.

And when sleep comes again,

I am home—

if only for a breath.

Excerpt from a novel I will never

[thenevernovel]

Give it everything. That is not what I am arguing against. Give it everything and let it take what it takes and cost what it costs. Just remain, somewhere underneath all of it, a person who exists independently of the outcome.

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

[thenevernovel]

What I wish to say, before I go where you cannot follow me is that this going is easier, knowing you are the one who is staying to witness it.

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

[thenevernovel]

But if the wolf sleeps at your door not to guard you from the world, but to keep the world from having you then the cage that loves you is still a cage.

No one on the outside can save you if they cannot reach you.

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

[thenevernovel]

Love is knowing the teeth are there, and closing your eyes anyway. For who among us will lie upon their deathbed and wish they had loved less. Who will count the scars and call them mistakes . Who will look back on the teeth that closed and say I should have run — not one, not ever. For the only thing we regret, in the end, is the love we turned from. The hand we did not reach for, the fangs we did not dare.

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

[thenevernovel]

why cant you let your mom go?

For some people their childhood is a second skin. You can never get rid of it. And to add all these excerpts are written through observing the lives of many people. I do not have / I am not a muse.

[thenevernovel]

Hello!! I was just wondering, I know thenevernovel is currently on pre-order, but if I don’t feel comfortable uploading sensitive info to the Google document, how may I order it whenever it comes out normally? (Sorry if this is a repetitive question 😭 but I love your work!!!)

Hii ! My apologies for replying late. I was off my socials for a while. You can order it through my Instagram dms (@thenevernovel) wen pre-orders open again.

[thenevernovel]

Sooooooooo... When are you gonna write the novel?

Oh I have written one never novel. The pre-orders have closed tho.

[thenevernovel]

Every Excerpt is so peak and beautiful

Tysmmm

[thenevernovel]

My greatest fear wasn’t being unknown, it was being known and found to be as ordinary as I suspected.

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

[thenevernovel]

My greatest fear wasn’t being unknown, it was being known and found to be as ordinary as I suspected.

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

[thenevernovel]

You cannot save a ship that has already chosen its wreck. The sea and I have an old, old understanding.

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

[thenevernovel]

But then I remember — sad girls make good stories, and I’ve always been a little too good at heartbreak.

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

[thenevernovel]

Don't look at me like that. You see a future, and I see a thousand endings.

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

[thenevernovel]

The person you were a moment ago has already gone. The person reading this sentence is vanishing now. Who, then, is left to mourn them?

Excerpt from a novel I will never write

✨Get thenevernovel here:

https://forms.gle/VUgcT4ChN7LVpN3L8