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