Blue/Jacket 10

I missed Nick as a friend too much because he had talked to me about how he would come to visit me and try to find a beautiful Swedish boyfriend, but it was all gone now and the first months were just downright miserable and went under the slogan of how do you even make friends anymore?

Missing Nick, now leaving him alone as a lost friend shredded me because I would never be able to speak to him again and as time passes and neither of us speak, even forgiving seems bleak because we know the other would yell at the other’s distance. He didn’t even bother to find out how did I make it and neither did I find out how his university is going. 

The first few months were tired and filled with isolation and coping all loss from places I would eat out after school to feeling nothing in the apartment at all, roaming from room to room, never feeling calm as the balconies were filled with Swedish flags and there was an immense desire to have snow just because it would give the illusion of everything being dead and now watching everything spring to life when I was still scared and some rebirth of things I've seen before was just plain odd. 

Alex doesn't offer me a cigarette and I keep looking at him, as he apparently seemed in bed with thought last night and I wondered how his nights were filled and it was far from something I would ever ask Jamie about, let alone Jack which seemed to flutter about us.

I haven't even properly met Jack and just talked to him, a few hours can play out however they want from taking nothing and wasting themselves as blank paper to revealing a lifetime.

But Nick still stomped on my thoughts as I would drink tea on the floor, thinking of him and how life just stopped revolving around him and too many distant memories of how even before I had come out, when he was out we would just end up looking at each other even in busses and laughing out as we thought of haircuts for me and I knew that I had loved him even if I hadn’t known myself and my love for him was the anchor for me to know what I actually knew about for years and now he was gone, because old loves still ache and the wounds are forever open because scars can always be visible on the skin even if you got some lovely tattoos on the side. And Nick himself becomes a reminder which I don’t need every day that men wouldn’t go for me, so looking at Alex and Jamie feels a bit odd and off, feeling loved or wanted is always odd when people told you that everything was wrong with you and it’s the reason for an insane hour. 

The same words circulate in your head, no matter how much you push them away because no one will ever tell you they find your body attractive and that it’s a man’s body, one thing is your own refusal of body and another when Agy ran after me and took my hand, saying that she thought about it and that the patriarchy enforced me views that women are weak and that’s why I decided that I am a man. That I gave in.

And in that moment I wanted to slap her, but then she’d accuse me of patriarchy, that I became a violent man. My hands started aching and when I came back home, I thought I would thrash the whole house down, instead I just packed and spent three hours trying to come, knowing that I could never fix the fact that I couldn’t see myself as a man, because for people I would always be some female traitor and that I would never bring use to society and leaving seemed like suicide, because I gave up trying to convince people. 

Hatred of the self makes everything worse. I hated myself that I couldn’t link my body to what I wanted and that no one would see me as a man, claiming that they knew better, because they saw my vagina and they wanted me as a woman and desperation trails for months and hands ache from all the anxiety and sitting down on the balcony, head between the legs and crying makes nothing. Because yeah, you can hate women, yeah you can hate that one man you loved, but it’s never that all women are bed or cis men are bad. But they will always think that all trans men are bad.

And time passes and I don’t even know what I had done the whole week, because I hated myself so much, because I couldn’t be loved as a man. And I knew that everything seemed to be demanding that I would just like we pray for an error to be gone, that I would be that. That people prayed that I would stop existing by solely finishing myself off and preferably that my blood would not stain and that I would not take any ground, that I would not take any space or any heart for that matter. Or that the men I would drag with me would stop being gay because for many women, it’s a shame if a man is gay. I grew up with girls whining on that and I had wanted it gone so desperately. And it was okay, because the world seemed to shift and the more I sat on that coffee meet up the more revolted I felt, passing the phones around and I felt very insignificant and I felt as if I had been spying on opinions which I should have never heard leave their small heads. But it did.

Alex happens in a haze and when he leaves the heart just keeps beating fast, trying to reminiscence that he exists and how some relationships take slower to assemble and some are written on the veins, yanking you from a fall while others caress the stars. 

I still feel like I can never believe the face of people who seem to think that there is something wrong with anyone who will not see their female problems above all. And maybe that’s why I leave and it’s odd to see that things build up in time, like odd Lego block towers built by kids, much taller than they are. It makes me question how did it happen. 

You can talk about inequality forever.

And no one will ever talk about how it feels to be peeled down by society and reminded always that what matters is how nature built your cocoon and people focus on appearance too much, we always think of how everything looks rather than the memories which drain us with surprise and we will think of beautiful places rather often than memories or because something pleased us as we looked at it, rather than the things. But maybe we rely on that because we had been alone for so long. And being stripped down only reminds us that somehow no one is looking at us. And we follow the stereotypes in our head ready to be built, up to the point that when I see single old men I always wonder or rather presume they should be gay and the associations start going in the head on how must it be and my own thoughts vine rather often on, clinging.

Growing up was a pain, wondering and hearing so many things on how gay men had to be miserable to compose, draw or make anything and because only a gay man could be miserable that would end dragging on, like a rattling snake with all it’s thought and because of the body I was given I would end up thinking even more how I couldn’t even be properly and artistically miserable, that I wouldn’t happen to end up locking myself up to see the misery reflected in the night. 

And with age you only seem more lost, numbers only remind of the time passing.

Body dysphoria will end up taking all of the lungs with the thinking from any misery which drags on from bottom to chest. And a lot is asked of would this mess happen if society wouldn’t be showing me how flat chested men are and how all of them happen to have a sock in their boxers. I never understood why does it have to be a unified thing between the dick and balls in ads. We all know what’s expected to be there, because they wouldn’t show someone with a vagina, because men have all the views of women wrong and of course someone who is presumed to be a woman would never want to be a man, would always love the vagina and would never cry about not having a penis.

When I was young, I ended up raiding my mother’s magazines, which becomes far too autobiographical to even speak of in the mind and I just look at Alex, realizing that I’m not out to him yet, just to Jamie and Jack. And in those magazines I remember there was some Freudian article on how all women wanted penises and it was rather lengthy and it seemed to make sense to me. I didn’t understand how could this apply to all women, but I agreed. And there had been too many memories which I would never look back upon, because none of us want to live a lie life. And only when we seem to calm down it is when we look back on our memories which we’ve formed knowing ourselves.

The more people misgender me the more I see that it doesn’t matter how much you transition, it ends up being for yourself because no one will bat an eyelash to see it as an act of violence and no one will stop themselves from assuming what your skin tells them you were assigned at birth as.

And looking at Alex makes me more than ponder different questions, as I wonder how long would it be until he would let go of the leather jacket and what amazes me is that you can still dream as you walk down the same or the newly seen streets, feeling sense of reality, not just from a insomnia filled night with a moving head. But then what if we’re all lucid dreaming all the time from all the things we’ve touched and the saddest thing you’ll ever hear is that you never really touch anything, it’s the small space between atoms which causes the touch feel, so we end up never fully even feeling love, just the closest distance, as if it were a wall all over again. 

When it comes to either of them, does it become greed and which one do you juggle and how come you can destroy a canvas in one day and fall in love with another while days of growing up where loitering in melancholy and there had been nothing besides the fuzz in the head screaming to just let go, clutching onto the desks and no one ever asking why

because everything seems to be connected with the fact that no one really likes a trans man, because it’s never as quirky as being a butch “girl” was. No one wants another man, because I will be to blame for all the men who have done things I have never ever thought of, while the women who will fling me outside my life will never be held accountable because the past is easier to blame than a crooked present feminism. 

I could never look at Alex in the eye, as we walked and I wondered how do you even speak to someone like that. He asks about groceries and I just run down through my list and I wonder how much does he know he’s lost. And I wonder how much would it feel and how I suddenly felt lost again, wondering how come his jacket, which still looks like it’s only been worn a day has managed to make itself into my mind. It’s surely not a souvenir and I wonder how many of them have even been manufactured and who had I seen and how could I see his face as I was growing up and how come he had been the man with the dreams. 

“I think the Devil’s wings are made of dreams.” Nick had told me once, as he had sat outside with me on the balcony, we had all the lights turned off and the sky was pitch black, the outlines of clouds were the only company. “Because just think of it... if God does exist, what if the Devil controlled the fate of everyone?”

He had exhaled, wrapping his arms around as I watched him, wondering how much of my fallen love would trail behind me and after him and it was back in those sultry moments when I believed that he would still be into me. And I had the thought while growing up that what if I had thought I was trans because Nick was into men, but as time went on and he rejected me I’d never felt so much like a man in my life and it seemed like my gender was the only thing I could confide in, tucked in my room and eating the same pick and mix Alex would get. 

“That would explain why there’s so many wars and why people become so twisted and also... doesn’t it make a weird point that the Devil was once trusted? Would that mean that the worst are the betrayers? Never people who you never knew?”

And I had looked at Alex, wrapping my scarf tighter, feeling odd about confessing that Jamie was in my bed and that Alex didn’t know that I was trans. 

“So how did you get the cool jacket, though?” Even if all I see is curiosity in Alex’s brown teddy bear eyes, he points at the back, smirking and I wonder how he still wakes up and what does happen, when Jamie leaves from him and how deep his regret had been, because the now disfunct couple showed more than distress of a dead relationship, how Alex had held Jamie in his arms and I wondered how deep actually cheating had hurt both of them and what had been running through Alex’s mind, but I couldn’t ask that even if we all jump at anyone gay who we know, as if that’s all our love circle could ever be, but we don’t ever fight it or deny it. I do end up being attracted to men, anyway. 

“Oh, I actually ended up buying in a small store in Gamla Stan, to be honest. They said it was handmade, there were maybe two or three of them when I came in first?” Alex shrugged, quickly checking his phone for the recently popped up notification and I wondered how often has Jamie taken the night bus to end up with his ex-boyfriend and I wondered what thoughts would go through the Brazilian’s head, watching the city suddenly go smaller in size, cars vanish and the roads become still and dark. I wondered why I thought of them but it was merely because I never had the guts to start a relationship, let alone even ask either of them about it. 

I always feel weird getting groceries with someone, because I feel odd kind of thinking is it okay to get a whole cart? Do you get the trolley? Alex ends up taking a basket and I follow, wondering what the fuck do vegans even eat, because before everything fell apart with my mom, I would end up working at gran’s butcher place and meat ended up being a big part of my life. Is soy milk vegan? What does he even eat? I end up taking the phone, thinking and Alex looks at me. Instead I keep pressing my phone against my lips, as we walk past the bakery and I end up going back to get croissants, praying. 

“It’s a lovely jacket.” Was my closing, before we end up going through the cereal section and spend maybe half an hour on the pick and mix, as I even manage to remember the lost fruit and panically get a salad. Alex ends up eying my choice of food and I pray that I look vegan enough, but I had ended up taking a carton of milk for myself and nachos. I’d end up getting Jamie out of bed anyway, apparently or rummaging through all the drawers, thinking what would he even eat. We could eat out though. That would involve leaving the house. 

“There’s nothing else in that store to be honest.” Alex smirks, getting far too many jelly beans. “I’m more of an H&M sort of person, Jamie’s the one who gets a kick from Acne and so does Jack, but I’m no heir or ghost writer.” 

He smiles. Alex seems to be musing on his own words and it feels like I’ve seen him tonight, crouching to see the new chocolates for the pick and mix and I wonder how much had I seen of someone who wasn’t him. And who had I loved all the time, but instead we pay and I end up inviting him to hang out again tomorrow, apologizing for my awkwardness and just reassuring myself that with nothing definite with Jamie, perhaps I could juggle my awkward thoughts a bit more, before I would realize what would end up trapping me, whether it would be a person or some belief in some Devil drawn fate, just as said  by Nick who said that love was a Devilish thing, probably because he really didn’t want me.  

“Me and Jack, actually, after I found out that Alex cheated... I was distressed and I offered him to join me in Lisbon. I didn’t want to go back to Stockholm and it was a cheap bus ride, anyway, not that we didn’t have the money, either.” Jamie shrugs as he tells me this, when I get back and he starts unloading the bags for me, right after I had entered the door and he grinned at my note, welcoming me in, as if it had all been there all along. I don’t even ask what led him to that and I wonder if he had seen us as he was on his first morning smoke. “And we had hooked up a few times, I was very depressed and I knew that Jack had liked me. I think... the oddest thing, was that he said that it meant nothing, that it was just fucking, because he knew I wasn’t keen on it. It was really weird, to have someone openly acknowledge no romantic attraction in between, I guess.”

He notices my concern.

“I don’t mean that about you in any way... I just recalled, because I dreamt again of Lisbon, I do rather often, I think of both of us drinking on staircases and not saying anything, because we couldn’t unwind ourselves and that was the biggest anti-climatic relationship I’ve ever had which was as stale as a dream. But it always comes back to me in dreams, as if Jack is bleeding about it. I don’t know why.

Or maybe I don’t want to know.”

-

Happy chapter 10 xD 

Basically I ended up writing the last Jamie part where he talks about Jack before the Alex chunk and I just put a note to write the Alex scene later and I was nervous and thinking how to do it, because there's two love lines going parallel now, so I kind of needed to balance that out and I just had the Jamie thought so I wrote it down without thinking much to be honest xD

The first Nick paragraph was a sort of washed down memory of this guy I used to be friends with a few years ago and I had told him I moved to Sweden and he said he'd want to visit me, but we don't really keep in touch and it's a bit weird, I'm not too fond of coming out to people from places I've long left and don't want anything with. He's lovely though. So that was put in, really.

I can't recall if I ever spoke of it, but Blue/Jacket takes place in the neighborhood where me and Callie first moved to, it was a nightmare but I liked the region and I just changed a few things, but it's pretty much that one:) and I kind of see Miles' apartment close to where we had rented the room. It's really odd to see how far we've done with pretty much no one besides each other and I had just started talking to my ex then, so it's... rewarding and nice, but odd indeed. 

The first months were very odd when we moved, it was nice but just like anything else, it was interesting and I'm deeply happy but kind of moving suddenly was obviously a big mental shock and I mourned a lot, even if I was much happier. Yeah, the amount of Swedish flags struck out to me.

It's quite an interesting thing in this chapter I guess that Miles doesn't really have the courage to ask about Jack or Jamie, so he ends up painting what he thinks would be and I write it as the things I see those characters doing if I could've written it then:)

I whenever end up mussing too much on the story, like the day before yesterday (because yesterday I had finished writing the chapter and headed off tired to bed xD) I was listening to Old Mary by The Dead Weather (which is my main Blue/Jacket song. Spoiler? Ahah, I dunno xD) and I got a kick from Magazine's The Book so those helped me write the Alex scene even if the songs don't have to do much and they ended up serving more help for Nick's musings on fate and I had wondered for a second who should say those words and instead of Jamie, chose Nick.

I think Blue/Jacket speaks as explicit as I could about trans men, dysphoria and transmisandry really. Agy's words were pretty much what I had heard really. It's surely one of the most hurtful I've heard and nonsense as well. That paragraph speaks with much more honesty than I can add really, because Blue/Jacket is what I open when I feel dysphoric or need to vent, so it's the pure honesty and anger, which I would not be able to describe now in such accuracy because frankly my main emotion now is anxiety, making sure that I get the backstory right and tired XD

Also I ended up writing a lot, thought of leaving the Jamie scene for the next chapter, but decided that a longer chapter would be great xD (and a big backstory for me to mumble on sleepily xD ughh XD don't worry, I love writing back stories xD) 

When I was growing up I pretty much had girls/women who I knew get sad over Ricky Martin being gay, that he had taken away some woman's happiness, that it was a shame and a traitor, so I addressed that since there's a fucking belief as if all is okay if you're a gay man and I'm really tired of that and that's why I write viciously xD Also it got inspired by Callie who told me of a guy she knew who was gay and girls would make whole attempts to sleep with him because he was gay and fake something to sleepover at his even if he had a boyfriend, that they could make him not gay, just for them. So we need to speak about that. 

Me and Callie saw a few times kid build towers much taller than them in McDonalds, this shout out is dedicated to you kiddos xD I end up seeing something which I think would be good even as a line in a story and I take it, kind of the whole roses ask me to write about them thing:)

I grew up hearing that only gay men could do the most beautiful things from designing clothes to artists and writers and grew up hearing that a gay man would always be miserable because he was gay and he would never find a partner, that always saddened me and I ended up applying it to myself, I wanted to be that gay man, I wanted to be a gay man writer locked up and writing miserably. I still am, only not miserable and taken xD

I had my birthday recently so of course I thought of age.

I hate underwear ads. I'm really not interested in the uni erection. And in general we should be pushing more imagery of men who don't bind, men who don't transition, because not all of us can, not all of us do, even if Miles kind of falls in this story under the very dysphoric man, really and I thought of it, but the point of making a character trans is not changing them, so I stuck with that. 

The magazine is actually a real story, I had found it and hah, subtle push. Looking back it was a rather... interesting trans man article. Errr, you go weird issue of Cosmopolitan? Like said, it's interesting to go back and see all the clues which led to who you are.

I ended up getting misgendered so I got obviously sad and dysphoric and had that dark thought about it, so yeah. But fuck that. Fuck misgendering, we are who we are. 

It actually made me sad to hear that we never really touch anyone, quite... sad. 

Yeah, I'm being rather hateful of the whole erasure of trans men because some people can't get over their gender issues or end up using it for their own greed and need (*cough* Erika Linder). You're either on the spectrum or not, but you can't be quirky andro cis female, andro is not your fucking adjective, so neither is frankly such words as feminine and masculine, butch falls under one. I'm sleepy and I'm tired of holding my tongue, but if you're reading this, you know what you're reading.

I'm also getting overrall annoyed at feminism and how anyone with a vagina is accepted into women circles, both sides should stay away, if you're not a woman stay away from those spaces and MOST IMPORTANTLY NO FUCKING ALL VAGINAS ARE WOMEN SO TRANS MEN WELCOME OR WHATEVER. 

I talked about Nick earlier xD actually about where Alex had bought it was decided and the location a year ago actually xD even earlier I had raided to find the location xD

There's so much hatred towards trans men that you cling onto every shitty excuse people come up with these days because it's oh so wrong to be a man now. Ugh. So it's hard to accept yourself when everyone wants you dead.

I was musing on traitors and how the worst enemies were ex-friends.

I get anxious about grocery shopping with someone else, it's like... how much milk can I buy? xD I'm rubbish at vegan diets, my health doesn't allow me to exclude many things, so yeah.

The summer thing I met Callie in, I had a roommate which agreed with the bloke she was naging to just have a summer romance and that at the time kind of seemed nice to me because I was used to seeing break ups, while here everything was decided, so I think Jack's words was a bit of an ode to that. Also the brief Jamie/Jack was decided ages ago.

I hope you enjoyed it and thank you so so much for the attention this story has been getting, I never expected it to be loved as much because of its trans content, so thank you so much.

Please tell me if you enjoyed it and thank you, dears

<3

Jamie

An ode 3

“Quentin.” I introduce myself and I don’t know why when choosing a name once more, my boots gave me said name with their lack of shine. I don’t even know why had I even been up north in the said store again, avoiding name for the sole humanity reason of torture. Is torture when you speak too much or when you speak too little?

And why was everything autobiographical better before the word comes out? But the whole act, the whole idea of speaking it, the split second before it is said is muh said to be better? And why is the world better at times when running and confusion runs deep within the mind and veins and torture is knowing that you would never manage to rest, that crucification and exorcism had happened, because you had travelled far too much and lost far too much,

but 

never

never

never never 

never renewed, as if a poet, as if poetry, as if splattered and all these thoughts race in my head, as I try to guess his name, what might it be and if it should be blackened from my mind, but instead he excuses himself, stepping over some old stuffed rabbit and into some stacked vinyls on a shelf and takes out some vinyl not so worn and then sits next to a record player, putting the song on, which I can more than presume be called Quentin.

Maybe I should let my story be as surreal as my gray cowboy boots can be. I wanted to a Space Cowboy, never watching Cowboy Bebop.

It’s kind of that feeling after you just exit the shower, a deja vu of your own self, as I keep looking around and I keep hearing the odd song which sounds like it could’ve been Magazine, but isn’t. Instead I sit besides him, as he lights a cigarette and I wonder what would even happen once the flame shoots the tip of the cigarette, but nothing happens. He inhales and I recall all the ads and he’s listening to me rather than the song, pitch black eyes on me. Once I had a friend in kindergarden who told me that her eyes, the same shade were the colour of honey because you could see the pupil bathe in the iris, just a barely noticeable halo around it, fully eclipsed in its bee glory. 

“I’m Daniel.” I try to mute out all Daniels I’ve ever met in my life, spirits included and I just shake his hand, oddly and I wonder if cigarettes would even be offered and would I even take one or solely refuse out of sheer principle? Does it even matter if you’ve smoked before when you are offered? What is the etiquette at the end of the world? I stretch out my boots, so that they are besides Daniels’ feet, under his body. I wonder now if he would mute out all the rest, like a soft Christmas carol and I wonder what do people even do at Christmas and how many stories are still intertwined?

I wonder how many thoughts and how much love is lost at the last moments of a day, with the eye shutters closed firmly. Daniel keeps looking at me for a brief while, the song stretching even longer as we start nearing the ending and I’m surprised it’s not a love song. I muse on saying it out loud, as if I were actually practicing how is it to speak after thinking, after building full phrases and I wonder if it’s beautiful when life progresses onto something daily? But is it even possible to progress further when the mind seems to be a post-apocalyptic eclipse with our own ignorance being our shield? And is it sly to already be in that mind state, watching people dissolve in confusion on the streets and no one even carrying spare change anymore, that if something is handed, it’s small notes, just to anyone who needs it.

Running away from reality is cowardly, just watch at least, even with the mouth shut, know who should carry this world. And if speaking out becomes easy the turmoil is what do you even say and maybe that’s when we gain courage to fight within our bowl of rice, since the chopsticks are discarded and we are left to go cold, for we were cooked already? 

“It has no love line.” I raise my eyebrows and Daniel looks up to me, the next track already going and I wonder where the new obsession with vinyl is going, it’s some way to make money again, it feels like bringing back old morals at times, because it gives people benefit, rather than realizing that perhaps with the depressed and repressed lives we have nothing to do rather than mute our minds? But I look at Daniel and if he were to choose to spend it on records, let him. I’m the one on the couch below, confused. 

No one understands the housing situation at times, how it just clutters you that there is no place and I just count the last day on the couch, as I were to move upstairs and it depresses you that all unfolds to be nothing, fear escalating and escaping. 

Yet, let me meet him like this, like I had imagined, let my darkness swallow, let perhaps my future, present be like my past, easy for me to paint. 

Give up.

-

There are many things which drive me up the wall and frankly number one is transphobia. I dunno if you've read it, heard of it, cared, but Erika Linder admitted to being bigender as a publicity stunt. I'm grossed out and annoyed at the whole cult of being a woman, as if you can't be anything else.

I'm literally posting out this chapter of An ode to dedicate away from this bullshit, even if I'm awfully tired after a very long working day, I'm not letting this bullshit slide and I'm even writing a backstory instead of finishing off other stories.

An ode was writing a big sort of political protest and I used Quentin as an androgynous character also because even if I do speak out a lot that trans men have no visibility, androgynous are used as an adjective and never as a gender in the media and that needs to stop. So using Quentin as a main character was more than intended because the story focuses on erasure of problems and Quentin becomes not even a metaphor, but showing how it feels to be entirely erased and I guess today it's more of a flip than anything. 

Daniel was frankly chosen because I still write gay novels and Quentin/Daniel obviously echo back because it's frankly the closest gender-wise character couple I've had to me and Callie, so that added a different personal touch.

I randomly thought of the name Quentin and kept it, because it sounded nice and a name is quite an interesting thing because when you come out as trans, you start musing what fits you and for me Jamie was accepting myself entirely (I had written a novel many years ago with a main character called Jamie), so kind of obviously living with Callie and talking to her makes you see things in a very clear light how it is to be trans, so Quentin ended up being a very conscious choice. 

Daniel was more because it sounded nice and it was odd because I don't like using names of people I know, but Daniel was the exception because we just know too many Daniels. 

I kind of mused on songs which are called after someone's name and my birth name had a song which many people sang to me, because it was a religious and nice name, but I've always felt discomfort for it because it didn't feel me, I didn't like it on me and I mused on whether there's a Jamie song xD I can't recall what can I find, so giving the "Quentin" song was kind of based on that. Hah, maybe I should write one.

Also, I did a photoshoot with Callie, since she's the perfect androgynous star ahah xD and yeah you can see those photos on tumblr from while to while and instagram :) links on the right toolbar

I want to watch Cowboy Bebop and I don't have the time and I was writing this for Nano, so of course, flood of thoughts:)

I love Magazine, after Joy Division they're my fave to be honest when it comes to post-punk even if I don't talk about them often.

The honey coloured eyes were told to me by my best friend back in kindergarden/preschool in Colombia and that kind of stuck with me because it's a pretty expression. Also many things from that friendship ended up building many aspects of my life, it's interesting how many talks which you have as a child build you. 

I don't get the vinyl obsession these days and it is a way to cash in obviously, so yeah. 

The give up is more of an attraction thing here and situation-wise, but more of a calm down, let go of the worries sort of thing, I believe xD and the housing situation coz it's rather bad in the country where I live xD like even google the horrors of Swedish housing xD 

I hope you enjoyed it and don't forget to not be an asshole to NB and trans masculine people.

Tell me if you liked it, coz I haven't heard any feedback on An ode yet ^^;

<3

Jamie

The Blunderbuss Angel Said The Union Is Forever 10

Love becomes adoration and a drink.

Depression makes each day worse with anticipation as all seems to shatter with forgotten birthdays even my own, because anxiety is the one which rides the dawn, allowing the seasons to change rather than my own mass. All pills are scattered and it’s as if I were to take one it would tell me where to leave and I even wonder which natural to even go for, as in the morning as I flick through catalogues Kate had left, hurrying off somewhere, brushing my teeth in the meantime sometime in the afternoon, watching how each collection seems to be more natural but neither do I seem thrilled from the trend of bright haired colours as I had seemed to left that back in my twenties and nothing seems sacred anymore, besides the rattling anxiety

If mania seems to have depression and anxiety, why do we even call it mania, but that’s becomes it comes with a bunch of bouquets when the GP already transfers you on and asks if you’re delusional.

Sometimes I wonder upon my own thinking, how far does my mind even go and what do I even recall these past four years and when had I lost my memories and which ones had been rebuilt? I wonder how much can they tell from us not speaking as all is written down without us knowing.

Morals in florals. He showed up in a floral suit three-piece, I showed up in a gray one, staring, laying on the grass from below, watching him approach me and lit a cigarette for himself from my mouth, shy to kiss. And it’s as if we’re both tracing steps back, while looking at each other, not knowing which side would be the actual future. I don’t understand why can’t I feel his hand when he touches mine and how come his body isn’t mine and if we die and we’re all together, would life be the isolation cocoon which makes sure that the body will restrict us from being one with another person? So is it why we’re so lonely and we think that love is never enough, that we pierce ourselves and exchange blood just to try and think in the same mind? I wonder how many times do we all even register the same thoughts and what would the most exact repeating thought be and would it even be at a specific time and how long would it even take to register how to bend the knees the wrong direction to have some sense of long during pain, since we’ve got to break free.

And I don’t know how would I even manage to reply to anything like the polaroids he’s got which seem old enough for me to recall, as I can see his thoughts plastered and I wonder if one fears unrequited love and if that then transfers to the partner because by the end of the day we cannot ever reply to the mistakes we’ve made and we can only listen to what they would have to say.

“How do you convince yourself that someone is still open and that the skies are just as pink? That all the scenarios in your head will one day make sense and everything will fall into some blissful for you place?

But would it even be close to bliss for the other person as well? How can you guess ones happiness from just knowing your own?

And I will never know the pain which the other goes through. How silent it is.

How odd it had felt to come across them, recalling how Jamie had told me he had gotten that jacket from Edie Sedgwick from some auction and ended up taking Kate’s clothes off. It seemed far too intimate, to take such jacket and put it on someone, something far too intimate and far too stale in the smell of print just like any reported No Wow orgy in the metro discarded at some train. Yet, I could see it because when we don’t have enough time we wrap our fantasies into our daily life when we’re not happy or our teeth are chained. By the end of the day we push life, death and desire in one because we think we’re not worth more than minute.

That’s what I had thought.” Jack said, already smoking a cigarette as we both sat on the grass lawn and it was more than odd to talk about Kate with me in a bathrobe, hair wet with a shower I could not recall and the phone calls glistering from earlier and all the memories will be of winter when I will not have the courage to understand myself and speak.

And the night sky will turn midnight blue at four am.

“Paul is in a coma. What the fuck do I do?”

“He’s really not waking up, man.” The one voice on the phone, as if holding a dialogue with themselves, calling me again as Jack fiddles with his curly hair, watching ahead and he’s much taller than I would expect a building to be, as I press my head against the walls of the kitchen which should be filled with a joy I could not offer, as I can see Kate spread her legs again to excite some soul which I could never be, as the flashes keep getting taken and photos will be discarded to be avoided, feelings played with as if I were too scattered to even properly get turned on from my own inner demons and it only falls under the rug under what does a man really want. Because I would never be able to answer honestly why had I given Jack those photos, because I had never explained any magazine shoot and neither would I explain treasuring some woman’s naked photos in an Edie Sedgewick jacket.

“He’s really not waking up.”

and I haven’t drank the medication today, so I think of that said Paul, pressing his head heavier into a pillow, thrusting in, turned on and once I’d come he’d wake up, turn around and thank me that I had fulfilled his fantasy.

Maybe that’s why I had taken the photos.

-

I think what I specifically like about TBASTUIF (xD) is that it's very fluid when it comes to from whose point of view is it, it's surreal and it has all these parallel, dream universes and at the same time the sort of main line which is now after Jamie's stag party and into his married life, so it has frankly everything. I forgot that I started writing a Jamie chapter and I ended up writing today/yesterday a chapter from Jack's point of view and I didn't want to have Jamie's chapter and I pretty much went, I can fucking write everything in here. I'm really being honest.

So I just had a bit of an odd monologue from Jack, which was supposed to be the next chapter. Same goes for the Jamie phone call. I was awfully tired today and when I was napping I have weird thoughts when I started falling asleep, sort of like shallow bizarre dreaming as well, which was what do you do when you can't wake someone up and I guess my mind recalled how I recalled xD the whole sleeping fetish and kind of the whole fucking dead people topic was in my head and I was like, shit, that ain't too consensual and I guess because of the whole people allowing to submit themselves to cannibalism and all, I figured same would be for sleep. It also plays in that these things happen when you're fucked up. I'm pretty much waiting for an appointment to get medication for bipolar, so it's also a bit of an outcry and hyperbole in this case to raise that you shouldn't really go untreated for long if you can, that you're fucked up untreated, yeah, I can look after myself, but it's hard when frankly all that's left is fucking waiting for a slot, y'know. 

I don't remember roughly when I started writing the beginning of this Jamie chunk. Looks like I was having some heavy mania with depression, so I'll take that as an explanation because I really like that I talk about mental health here a lot, so yeah.

Throwback to Hince's variety of hair dyes.

I remember back the NHS would give these questionnaires to fill in and etc, so it's more of a wave to that. 

When I get depressed I think too much and my own mind becomes toxic, sometimes I force myself to be depressed when I write, like tonight I kind of set up a list to make sure that everything would be captured from the notes in the way I had wanted and I guess it's interesting how usually when I do notes they become the shortest scenes to be honest xD

A few days ago I had recalled for some reason Jamie taking photos of Kate in the Edie jacket so I ended up thinking that it's a good scene or something interesting to write about, so I nurtured that thought and it took me a good while to decide where it would fit best (jeez, even these notes are out of order xD) (I literally saluted at Callie's "this is fucked up" to reading the chapter, I did good). 

I remember and in general I feel a bit confused on how come even when we find someone or people, like we still can share everything besides dreaming, death and etc, why does life have to be a bitchy single sort of advocate and one of those why do we dream alone thoughts end up to be honest being, why can't I feel what Callie feels and vice versa, which I described in detail here (I kind of go through years asking that question in stories in different ways since life is supposed to be single for some fucked up way and isn't too couple or poly catering). And on that note I was thinking what if it's the body which holds us up because I got asked what does happen after death and that got me thinking since I kind of recently became more religious/spiritual if you must, so I mused on it because supposedly mediums say heaven exists and I just replied, I think it's much more complex, so I was thinking on it, how I thought it's more spiritual, soul, much less physical, kind of like when you encounter something, so I think it's more closer to that. I'm more of a psychological torture in the mind rather than physical, I don't have the need or feel it soothing or anything, but I still described the kind of feel you get to feel alive, like I would squeeze my hands to get back to reality rather than pain.

Also the whole partner thing, the thinking also falls under those thoughts and hypothesis. 

The Edie story kind of echoed with the No Wow orgy for me, but who knows and talking of that Edie kind of echoes with the recent Kate/Jamie photoshoot, which frankly is rather bad and frankly ended up in a bunch of jokes from me and Callie. It's really not flattering to either of them. The other Kate photoshoot which was released around the same time (lazy to google the name) is rather good. I love Kate photoshoots, which is frankly very obvious (I'm tired so I'm typing same letters twice, need to wrap this up xD) 

When you're depressed the time distortion is rather high and I used that because I was getting anxious writing and it just made the chapter more mentally health real really xD 

I looked at the sky, got inspired, midnight blue shout out to Ezra Koenig.

Fuck Jack's new haircut and this is set in my head around Blunderbuss +/- and he's hot there. (You can tell I'm dead honest tired and writing short explanations but frankly as they should be now instead of beating around the bush xD)

I decided on the kitchen coz they went there and Jamie started thinking of it, therefor he shot her in the kitchen here (I won't lie to claim if a location was given there in the Edie story xD) Sexuality is fucked up and kind of not being able to talk and head out of the closet, fucks you up, that's what the story is about really, I'm so honest even I didn't know that xD

I like ending chapters in a circle sort of thing, besides the part where before Jack comes it's separate, but still, good ending circular explanation. I'm off xD

I hope you enjoyed it and please tell me if you did :3

<3

Jamie

Relationship Values 3

Sharing a quick cigarette in the night is more preposterous. I see Lana standing and smoking outside, looking at her watch, pushing her hair back and then I feel Jamie’s hand on my shoulder, before he nudges me and I start walking to her, as I glance at my ex-husband now as he minds his own business. I put my hands in my pants pockets, approaching her and she turns around to face me, big eyes on and we both take turns in breathing out the smoke into the cold, cold night. She doesn’t speak first as usual and I give a small chuckle, as if we were kids again, but it’s never that way. There’s only one being nostalgic. 

To get rid of a dream, you need to find the thing that doesn’t make sense and focus on it. It’s not a virtue of repeating ‘doesn’t exist’ out loud, but challenge the memories dreams tell you you’ve forgotten.

I feel as if we are both one centaur and I happen to be the human part for some reason and I can’t even recall what she had told me when I was a bitter child, pushing memories away to make sure new ones aren’t made either and many things shine through others and the drift is more than evident in both of our eyes and everything we’ve ever said about each other is discarded.

“I’m sorry about your divorce, I never got to tell you, Alison.” Lana starts to speak. 

“I’m not the one who takes pleasure in being a trophy wife. I don’t care.” At least not about just being with Jamie at all times and not in the way she would approve. Good thing I didn’t get her on the phone as finalized the end of the marriage and unlike Lana I wasn’t looking delicious and eager to start life anew, I was a wreck from my own decisions and stranded freedom. 

“You’re still in touch with him, though-” Lana nods towards my ex-husband. 

“He’s my lawyer.” I reply swiftly, cutting razor sharp through meat.

“Well, if it was someone I didn’t care about I wouldn’t contact, so you’re stuck with either not loving enough or loving too much to see him again, then.” She states, flicking the ash onto the pavement, wrapping an arm around herself and I don’t even know how her life is even going these days, as if she could be a ghost and I would never be aware of it. I keep looking at my sister, as if we were back in school photos where people don’t link us as sisters and my hair went through a mashup of all colours combined while Lana smiled the brightest and drank the furthest. She withers. “So which is it, then?”

I feel a shiver run past my spine.

“If I won’t ask, who will?” I hold my breath as she asks the question and I don’t move or say anything, too many things triggered and the puzzle shattered, making me ask myself if it’s worth to put the pieces together once more. 

“Is this really what you want us to talk about after not talking for years?”

“No. You’re the one who brought him here, lawyer or not. He becomes the subject, just like you make sure to never discuss personal things with a friend, the ex-husband becomes one of them.”

“He’s not even here and he’s just...” I look and I see him smoking another cigarette. “Smoking.”

“So are we.” She smirks, even if we’re rather far away. 

“Then you can argue that we may also be the inevitable topic of discussion.” Lana smirks at my daft observation. I continue, though. “You didn’t sleep over at mine, like you said you would.”

“I can sleep over sometime, I just figured Jamie would be over-”

“He’s at a hotel, just like you.”

“Would be ironic then, if we both ended up in the same one.” I shrug to her words.

“The city is small after all.” And I moved back in, because after all the places you’ve lived in you choose the one which gave you the biggest peace of mind and sometimes it ends up even being old childhood homes which have nothing more than not holding things you despise and that becomes enough in a dystopian world, letting everything crumble and soothing after all collapsing buildings in the mind. 

I didn't want a love which doesn't fulfill me and I recall the streets again with the streamers as I walked, clutching and looking at him, trapped that nothing else would happen and all secrets would flourish as fungi in my body, as I looked at Lana's heels again, feeling myself warm up just like I had told Jamie back then.

Thinking of abortions as living things makes good metaphors of dead bodies inside but we've got enough misery to paint ourselves with black ink already, allowing it to shred us with the guilt of killing ourselves every day with the heavy sand clock.

Sex becomes a script for those who don't have it and we start shaming breathing, Lana's words rang through me after I had ended up dissing someone's comments on calling me sexy.

She laughed because I had been getting more sex than anyone she had known at the time and I was obsessed with a solitude image which I could be, just to be someone else in bed yet the word would travel different. I even managed to work part time at a sex store then.

“I want to forget memories with you, to know so long and to build so many, that I won’t even remember how we met properly, because we meet every day.” She had told me many years ago and since we drifted there was nothing to overwrite it. 

And it’s in the night, when the body shakes and anxiety seems a thing as surreal as the moon in the depth spoon of the night, that I would also gaze at Jamie, passing cigarettes and that’s when I had told him things about Lana I had never told anyone or thought of sober again, because our fear of talking even if most of our interactions with anyone are sole body language, the plain bonding of words or lack of it, destroys us, because it’s like not holding hands during a dance, because we see how fast sun days pass, how streets go by to be never seen again or playgrounds to be destroyed and you’ll never want to walk on the streets you’ve lost your virginity on. 

And Lana had walked on, we both did, to forget the memories we had built and looking into her light eyes made everything crashing down, as if I was looking at the light at the end of the tunnel, I knew I was dying and she was flashing in front of my eyes, reminding me of everything painful and every climax from that time we had kissed to when we both didn’t hold and with no words exchanged she pinned me down and looking at her, I knew how vivid my memories would now be, with her now thumbing with my life in a far more painful way than my ex-husband staying over whom I’ve had an affair longer than my sister’s life. 

-

Sorry it ended up taking longer than I thought it would with the fact that I've been writing it and this chapter in particular had been written for a while xD I was musing on what to put out and I've been in an odd Alison/Jamie mood but I don't have that many stories of them so I've been writing a new Kills one so my mind has been there xD But I wanted something out coz tomorrow's my birthday (it's 20th here xD) and I'm not sure I'll be pushing anything out then but who knows:) so basically, I'm here and RV is one of my favourite which I'm writing xD

Also I'm happy that it's my last chapter updated when I'm 20. It's odd because this blog will be 5 years soon xD like I have a poem dedicated to being 17 and all xD

I find dreams and nightmares weird and I have them often. What usually yanks me out of a nightmare is to see what's wrong and then you realize that it's not true and you're dreaming and then I'll end up waking up, but dreams are an odd thing. (Fuck, I'm inspire to write now xD, I'm back now xD)

The centaur metaphor happened to me when I was trying to nap and I had the image and I was scared of losing that so I scribbled it on a notebook or actually hoped that when I would wake I would still have that image. My sleepy mind is a weird thing. Many story ideas and etc come from napping, dreams or the last night's thoughts. 

The odd trophy wife kind of mock or not comes from the idea that I was musing on Lana's National Anthem and I kind of really like her role in the video, a lot and I kind of always wanted to write a woman like that, so Lana here is a bit of a spin on that desire if you must xD and in general I love Lana so much for her actually being an icon and showing without being a twat to the world, what a woman can do and I just love her to bits. 

Lana goes on to judge kind of the question we all have, even I muse on or mused on coz now I know xD 

I think what has to be said is that I take a lot of inspiration from life and what made it very weird in the beginning that the bitterness between them was taken a lot from my own experiences, but mine is more of a yelling fest and emotional abuse, but kind of touching the whole "sisters" thing was weird and in general becomes a cathartic thing and tongue in cheek, because I don't get along and neither do I want to yet I use the bitterness as a base for an actual good story. I use many things in life, failed relationships to be boosted and better like Miles/Alex in To Miles which is done from a wrecked relationship I had or I've used different exes, different women I've been involved with back when I identified as a woman (my gender was fluid in the past) and etc, I use odd fragments to make it vivid, cathartic and personal, so RV has that. I end up making relationships I never wanted on paper because I've felt different things, like sibling despite here. I can't remember what writer or poet the discussion was but in one of my English classes a few years ago we were discussing some female writer or poet and she became famous for talking of her family and the family was against it, naturally. It kind of comes from that, I sometimes don't give a shit about the people who've hurt me like siblings in this case. I'm more protective of family members I love, but it depends, but when it comes to Callie I ask her and we've agreed that I mention her and tell stuff which is relevant to plots.

If I won't ask, who will? Was also a sort of stab quote at the sibling annoyance. At times I was like shit, how do I do this but it's more than obvious and you have to separate yourself from characters and understand that like not all dogs bite, this is a fucking cat here, no relation whatsoever xD

Lana's and Alison's relationship is awfully complex here and I had thought of the memory quote randomly I believe and I was musing where I needed to describe such love and this was matching. The point of RV was that I see it more as two people which grew up together to be honest I needed someone who grew up together and had some taboo around them, but I always saw them as two people which grew up in the same family rather than "incest fetish", but it doesn't erase what it is and I've written incest previously, so it's been written before by me xD

The last line is metaphorical, it looks a bit odd, but it's a metaphor 8) go figure xD don't worry, feel free to ask:) okay fine, it's more like how it felt and experience as well. In general I'm really enjoying this story and I get to fiddle with many topics and relationships

Thank you and please tell if you enjoyed it ^^

<3

Jamie

No. 1 Party Anthem 5

Patience becomes more than a virtue it becomes some sort of torturous life obligation where you understand that you have to wait for the other’s person move and all you can do is anxiously think of moves, coming up with the worse possible, throat already attacking you back, all words becoming typos and fear instead of actual lover conclusions as Alex flips over to look at me, properly. The fear of his relaxed state seemed to ghost over me, how he seemed devoted to his beliefs that fear was nothing which would taint him in any way. He sat up, getting a cigarette and lighting it, watching ahead as if we would be graced by people and maybe flashes which would ask us what had we wanted, what were our desires, as if God had decided to make acquaintance and tell us it all. 

Anxiety becomes even worse, making everything wrecked and shallow, making the future scary from just happening, tomorrow was the painful backbone of today and the fish’s scales. And opening a chest even if nothing is left and the whole chest is a vague memory of feelings long torn years ago and some rubber friendship which had lasted far more than any of us had ever expected with the holes in the theories because we had both thought f actually dancing with our eyes opened and actually touching each other.

It was different.

There are people who you know which drive you insane and you want all the tastes and those which make you think far too much and you end up hating and those which you don’t and patience is a painful virtue.

Watching Alex in his opened state with the idea that this was the second day of us touching and even knowing of each other’s existence taste was fucked up and odd, anxious

I took his cigarette but the lump in my throat didn’t ease and as useless as we were he had kissed me, driving me insane already as I clung onto him, onto the kiss as if I were telling him everything, pulling him closer, playing far too much with his fire, allowing myself to dissolve faster in his water, pushing myself further, Alex moaning against my mouth, holding his hands to himself and reminding of how dull our lives are and how we just build them even more boring and daily ourselves, our desire to make it brighter we end up destroying the precious stones with our own fear

because anxiety makes you unable to see things clearly

and see, fucking see. I break the kiss briefly, pulling him closer as we both deal with our own anxiety, as I still hold the cigarette and feel his fingers against my cheek, stroking as he pulls me up for a kiss again and neither of us can speak and since we had spoke enough with our bodies, it becomes only natural that the relation remains sexual to the end. And I wonder why seeping things under the rug becomes the new peace for nothing to erupt and we all shy away from some relationship war. Why don’t we ever risk to speak? And what is it that pulls us back always?

Why couldn't we say I love you if we've said it once and why do we end up waking away was something like my thinking slogan for months until it faded out entirely and wondering each day why I had given up and which one of us had actually decided to put the coffin of love under the ground for it to rest and suffocate while living and why had we decided on murder.

It was as If I would never be able to love again, I guess but then you get a clearer picture when time passes and the passion becomes a daily thing. I like to think that I've seen Jamie look at Brian and that's how I base things. I want to keep it that way, knowing that we didn't love enough since we've killed ourselves.

“I met Arielle in a concert, actually... I guess it’s maybe a bit simpler to weed out who is interested in that case.” Alex says, fiddling with the burnt out cigarette in his hands and I realize that it’s just like any other time which is interesting and you talk about which paths you’ve taken and whose mouth you’ve felt against yours whether it was once or in a dream or who you wished you would’ve kissed. And I wonder how long has it even been that it wasn’t someone who I did not know or even shooed out of the bedroom. It had been years just loitering at Jamie’s and watching him with Brian, until he hadn’t been with Brian and I wondered what had I been doing wrong, a few moments of despair when enough sleep starts crumbling sanity, making sure that I wouldn’t have the words with both of us musing silently. And I wondered how come friendship was even a victory. Neither throwing him out of my life being an option, I wondered how come I had thought that we had kissed once, when I had told him I had loved him that Valentine’s Day. I wondered how much had I vividly thought of it that it had messed with my wires, actually strangling me enough with desire to give me vivid hallucinations. But I don’t tell that to Alex, feeling more attached to the young man bizarrely, and I truly hoped it wasn’t because Jamie wasn’t available and because I hadn’t wanted to be with someone who I had seemed to be escaping as a dance partner, even if we’d both be as intimate as we could, only Brian knowing secrets much deeper from thought to feel and depths of anything I could never touch. Anxiety shatters in a moment, because we’re greedy enough to not let ourselves think of things we’ll never get. I still try to shake it off, because apparently we had decided on not to even open the subject, far too scared and it seems friendship was the end game here. Decided. 

“I guess. It’s not... really like that.” I scratch my eye, flicking the lighter on and off now, watching the flame fast and looking at Alex, who is entirely relaxed now and even stretching quickly as I watch him from the corner of my eye, wondering how much at ease we will ever be and how much does it even spread like butter and how cold it would be next year for that matter. If he would look down if it were to snow. I shake the image of us walking under snow. “You have to be lucky to meet the same person in an empty room. If that’s what you’re really wondering. Gay bars are always empty and boring.”

“Really? I always thought they were... jumpy and exciting, like in movies.”

“Well, maybe some are. The ones I tried a few years ago had nothing besides good cocktails and well, sitting, thinking that gay people are around you I guess would be flattering at times, when you just come out, but then your life doesn’t really go as ‘this is where I can be gay’, everything becomes a gay location, coz you’re there, really.” I muse on how Jamie spoke out on how he felt a bit homesick. I swallow quietly. “And yeah, it was back where we grew up and all. It’s a bit different now, I guess, as in here and we all cling around or rather under our roofs.”

I look at the books which are even on the floor, which I had gotten ordered and couldn’t be bothered to stick in the shelf already filled up with over-read books I could memorize from even my teenage years, there’s not too much gay literature ever anyway, if you search, yeah, you’ll find some and you’ll discard that some as well. 

“That’s true, but Arielle always ends up doing parties. All the fucking time. It’s like... we can’t even sit on the same table anymore, it’s either Agyness broke up with her boyfriend, or her mom is over, or someone else is over, or someone can’t find an apartment, which is bloody true, but they’re staying over for a month.”

“So you guys not fucking or-?”

“No.” He laughs. “It’s not that.”

Alex looks at me and gives out another short lived laugh.

“Jesus, that’s not why I’m sleeping around.” He shrugs, a bit unease from that but his state remains calm oddly, but I brush it off, keeping it at the back of my head, as if waiting for its turn. “It’s more like... we barely do things together.”

“So, I’m like the talking prostitute now?” I grin at him and he makes a judging noise, holding back his smirk, before letting it out. 

“No, fuck no. I can get Jamie or some other gay guy friend you have. Brian, although he doesn’t seem too cheery and I don’t know any of your other friends.” Alex replies, pulling the covers a bit up to his mouth and he pushes the bedding from his lips. 

“To be honest, they’re my main.” I say, as if excusing myself for my lack of friends which comes from having too much Jamie and his love problems in my life. 

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” He shrugs and then quickly catches on. “Nothing wrong with that, just that Arielle has all her memory filled up with pals and whatnot. I’m not used to... just talking to a few people.”

“Well, you could have that.” I smirk.

“Nah, not with Arielle. I’ll have a fiesta on her fucking funeral and her own ghost dancing.” I smirk to that, wondering how far fetched has he patched their future in his head. I smile at him, wondering how would it even feel like that, my future always seems to be instant noodles and watching some TV show upside down on the couch or wondering which IKEA rug would benefit my inner demons or something snappy.

“I never had an ex like that. I’ve always had... introverted people, blokes you have to force to get out of the goddamn bed.” I smirk. 

“You’d fuck all the time, then?” Alex asks curiously.

“Well, depends, more like we’d hang inside or alone, really, I’m not too fond of people and I tend to be single most of the time anyway, I seem to be Jamie’s therapist and once I even sided with Brian and I had to fucking mend that with my best friend.”

“What happened?” Alex asks and I think, biting my lip and looking at the dull beige ceiling, wondering how long ago was it that I had glow in the dark stars and how come no matter how hard I try I never end up putting them up there for my own sake of conceiving some scrap of childhood nostalgia. Once I grew up, even if my parents rejected me I still was sad how it felt like to work, I wished I was back in school and didn’t know how much milk would cost and choose any tea promotion for the sake of saving or raiding through sales. It seemed closed and the tin can had its monsters but it seemed safer because I knew I couldn’t escape, while running around without knowing the walls is a bit more than scary at   times. 

“Jamie got very paranoid that Brian would cheat again and he...” I flick the lighter, recalling it had felt like a break up for all three of us and I wondered for a brief while if we were a fucked up triad and it had been the only time Brian had stayed over at mine’s alone. “Broke up with him, really.”

“How did Brian take him back, then?”

“Brian is a bigger sinner-” I look at him, we have different rational sins, I still flick at the flame. “Y’know for cheating, nothing you’d get.”

Alex kicks me under the covers. 

“You’re in this too.”

“I know.” I sigh, scratching my stubble, needing even a lazy shave not to look like a bear, keeping my otter rankings for now. I won’t be able to say anything because we never judge ourselves.

“It’s weird... because it takes a while for you to realize that you do love, but you think you love one person, and you actually love another. You love the person in front of you... but they’re not what you thought they would be.” He takes a deep breath. “I do lover her, but I can’t stand it sometimes... But I think it’s always like that with couples-”

“I never understood many straight couples, I never understood tolerance.”

“It’s different genders.” Alex gives his wisdom.

“I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s people settling for crap.” Alex stands up at my words and I don’t bite back on my own stance on why some relationships fall apart. One thing might be  that I’m more outgoing than an ex but another is when one can’t stand a third friend party on the couch, I catch my tongue, but all should be agreed. And not a compromise because genders and genders. 

“We still end up all being the same, I think. Of course, we all have different antics, but we all have the same things in the end, I guess. I mean, we all end up pleasuring each other in a way and we end up being broken by another person. And it ends up being harder to talk, so for instance we all end up checking up on exes, because we can never trust a person who managed to give up on us when we couldn’t. It amuses me how we all end up checking them, no matter how many years passes and you’ll always hear the same heartbroken stories of someone leaving, someone cheating...” He pauses on his and I wonder was it really how hard his exterior was to break down that it was all it took, to end up with someone entirely lost in their desires that they cannot hold anymore and the clay becomes soft in another man’s hands? And Alex goes on. “So why do we check up on them by the end of the day? Is it because we want to go back? Not really, so why do we still check or is it because we reduce the person slowly out of our lives, because just like a death, you can never get over that even if you broke up, that the person doesn’t breathe anymore. But that still rises the fact, is it actually more humane in our heads to simply stalk from afar rather than talk again? But then you could say it’s a plain mechanism, we can say our condolences without the dead speaking back to us, because just like the dead we will never hear their judging and we can fall in love again if we want, because our imagination is the safest form of all.”

“Do you check on exes then? To prove my theory.” Alex smiles at me. I muse on it, pulling the bedcovers. I go through my hair, not too keen on revealing myself, which is odd because he had and I even wanted on that and looking at him, I realize that frankly revealing myself would mean that he would reveal himself even more and I’m not really one to speak of myself too much, holding everything inside me, sometimes talking to Brian or Jamie, but never fully to avoid the obvious. 

“I didn’t date anyone for that long. Like I’ve had here and there, but I didn’t really have some strong connection to anyone, as odd as it is.” I bite my lip and Alex just seems curious, his eyes waiting for some sort of gossip revelation. “I just wanted to sort everything out in my head. I kind of needed to make a living and move out of Jamie’s, coz I didn’t really want to be the third wheel with him and Brian. I would hook up from while to while... But I really had too much in my head. After I moved out, yeah, I dated this bloke... But I don’t really check up on him though.”

I raise my hand.

“I do approve of your theory, just that I hadn’t lost someone I thought I never would or missed, that’s the thing.” I say and I grab a pillow, hugging it as Alex watches me. I decide to throw the question back at him. “What about you, then?”

I smirk, deciding that a mock would take place as my shield and anxiety would let me ride on something else and a shameless cover up. And I do add. “Any girl, then?”

Alex smiles, a bit remising. 

“Yeah, I’ve had a few. So yeah, I do check up on them, it dies off with age and I understand that I don’t want to talk about them or to them, for that matter. But it’s odd because I dated for a good few years, I didn’t have that much on my plate besides my own mind and thinking. It’s odd because one day you’re happy and the next day you want to break up with them, because you can’t stand anything from the way they talk to their TV shows. I guess that’s when I wondered how would it be with someone who has the same interests.”

“You could find some girl like that.”

“I could, but I guess I didn’t want to.” I see how much he has let his guard down, as if he’s confessing and I feel a bit odd, watching him dissolve in water entirely, as I hold him, wondering how come someone who has never done much besides hold themselves back manages to do that, while I just hold my tongue on everything in this life, wondering all the messes I’ve traced with chalk on the sidewalks, as if labeling my own murders. 

“Arielle was me trying to forget an ex. I chose someone similar enough to the eye, but enough for me to forget, when you’re scared you do the same thing. Always. I didn’t want to try and be an outcast because I wasn’t even sure I felt that way.” Alex says, reaching for another cigarette and I wonder how many hours have we dawned in smoke and would the night sky be such even colour?

“So you thought it would’ve been best if you cheated on her, then?”

“Yeah.” Alex says biting his lip. 

“It’s a lie. At least I think most of the men who say they’re straight and never thought of a man and end up sleeping with one. You’ll always have the thoughts, only someone sure of their indifference will state such things, I think. I remember a friend of my parents was over, when I was about a teenager and he said that David Beckham was hot. I made a joke that he’s gay and he replied that I’m a fool, that he can admire someone because he’s sure of his sexuality, while I need to ponder on mine, because jokes end up covering lies.” He shrugs and blows out the smoke. “And I’ll be denying everything again, tomorrow. Post-coital, you open up, because there’s no anxiety left and you get a sense that because you’ve let yourself get lost in the wonders of someone else, they will listen to everything and never hold a grudge, that all will be lost like the orgasm will become a memory, so will everything else in existence, because we make time exist just to forget people and thoughts.” And he looks at me with his big brown eyes, bewildered from the entire situation and how he had allowed his teenage self to shut up and that had been it.

-

I guess with To Miles because the chapters are so long, but then even No. 1 Party Anthem destroys it xD it always takes me ages to write them because it's really hard unless it's November for me to sit and binge 3.3 k (this chapter is 100 words shorter, sorry xD I liked where it ends here) at one sitting and because it has a strong backstory and I write ahead with We've all been broken. There is something in the polaroids we take of the ones we love. so I kind of end up planning the entire backstory and etc, also I've been musing on what would happen with all the other couples or interactions if you must and in general this story muses on many kind of daily things I muse on whether it's platonic or checking exes, really. But I'll get to that as I discuss the chapter xD

The story kind of deals a lot and this universe with waiting, which is a virtue I am entirely awful at and it comes to everything really, waiting is just awful and it kind of sheds light here on when you have to wait for a person's move and it becomes an odd in limbo state where no one can hear you, at least the other person can't. I'm sorry if I sound poetic, I've been writing a fucking lot these past two days and literally ungluing myself from the screen because I've been so inspired yet I obviously get tired from writing so much so I tell myself to stop xD so the backstory might be wordy and full of metaphors and what not this time xD

I'm also very very growing fond of Alex in this story.

Metaphor of this chapter would be: tomorrow was the painful backbone of today xD again because when you're waiting you get scared because you have so much time to think of everything. And in general I like how the story is melancholic frankly with so much action going on and it kind of reminds me in a way of Weekend as well, because I fell in love with that movie and I watched it nearly every day for a week and now it kind of becomes more than obvious why I identified with the characters so much, they kind of really called out to me and I guess I still thin it's one of the most perfect love stories ever told and it really inspired me as a gay man and as a gay male writer. 

Friendship vs love I guess goes a very long way in my stories, backstories and life, really. So the whole Miles/Jamie really focuses on that and I still muse on where I want it to end up and I guess that's why in WABB goes because I want to tell both of their stories and by Jamie and Alex being just friends kind of is shown as a contrast and in general the stories deal with that a lot, I guess second theme after the whole straight man fetish.

I think love which is one-sided or we think it is, drive us insane and ends up just killing slowly, I guess torturing.

I still talk briefly about war in my stories, not just a surreal contrast to our lives, but because it's there always now.

I make notes and one of them was which I left to not write this story for maybe days was that I wanted to start talking about Arielle. Also shout out to that recent photo because it really reminded me of No. 1 Party Anthem and I felt like writing but I realized I already was writing this story with that concept so yeah xD that photo is so fucking queer I can't even. 

The whole had I kissed him was back when me and Callie weren't dating we would muse a lot if we had kissed when we had last seen each other which was a sort of prom-esque thing where we were dancing the night away and that prompted me to have Miles think that here as well.

I think moving to Sweden made me at awful ease with the fact that you don't hang out much and I love that, so yeah. And in general gay bars are well, the ones I tried were empty and a disaster to find anyone, so yeah. I guess what I like about the story is how much they just talk of their daily lives, which is different for instance from Alex and Jamie's bed talk in To Miles, so yeah. I guess that's where the Weekend feeling comes from here. 

I kind of wanted to patch up Alex and Arielle's relationship, for me Stop The World... was always kind of dead-on headcanon and I kind of related to it for a while with my ex, I don't really listen to it anymore, so I kind of had that song and the headcanons in my head when writing this really. 

The rug IKEA thing is a Fight Club shoutout to show how low Miles thinks of himself and lonely really.

I miss having glow in the dark stars on my ceiling, I had them years and years ago. I really should buy some and put them back on xD And on that note, I had a day where I even talked to Callie on how I ended up missing kind of the idleness of school life, it was nightmare, but the whole not working and just not knowing money far too much, I kind of miss that, but it didn't last long and school was hell, but I kind of ended up musing on that because I was literally forced by life abruptly so yeah, so it was sudden and a sort of shock state if you must. 

I never understood tolerance which kind of was in front of me when I was growing with straight couples, the whole division of everyone being different and having nothing in common besides being married, still scares me to the bone actually because it was being rammed so heavily in my skull xD so I still shiver at it and I kind of expressed it here.

I'm very relaxed post-coital so that serves as an inspiration xD

The exes talk was because I randomly was browsing and came across someone following a very old ex and that really caught my attention and caused me to write a few things in my notebook, I have phases and I was too anxious to type so I just handwrote for a bit to relax and that was the thing really xD I didn't know exactly where to use it, I made notes and I was thinking of Jamie somewhere here either WABB or this, but I wasn't sure and I ended up giving it to Alex and I love it and kind of opened Alex in a way even more and I love him even more now xD also it kind of fits and etc, anyway, I loved it xD

It was me musing fictionally and on the person specifically, I just cut off and check from while to while mostly to see if there's some bullshit going on coz I've had incidents before but that's about it, but I barely do it can't even recall last time.

I kind of tell everything in the story already, when I binge and then it's as if I'm watching them and writing things down really

I also like keeping things out for interpreation at times like Alex's speech and etc. 

The David Beckham incident was something Callie had and I wrote that down in the day today xD and I'm falling asleep and I'm off xD if you liked it please tell me, I'll love you in the morning

thank you

<3

Jamie