England's Not Breathing 3

“So... how long have you and Pete known each other then?” I ask, trying to hold a conversation as I am thankfully facing the stage and I seem to be fidgeting again already, as I try to keep myself calm at least in some of the framework. Damon glances back just to see them plugging in, as I notice Jamie quickly look at us. Pete asks if we’re just all getting beer and I nod, Damon following my choice and Pete leaves us, as Jamie approaches the microphone, starting the first song. At first Damon seems to be holding back, respecting me as I watch him and even Pete comes back, as my friend’s friend grabs his chair and sits besides me, watching Jamie as well. Pete then takes out a notebook, scribbling some ideas away as he starts looking through the crowd for inspiration, more than at the stage. I don’t watch him too much, as that’s why he always goes with me, just to keep watching people, as he says it keeps him going, as he sees people changing, so can he keep doing different things in his stories and keep stirring things up. 

The fact that they play rather late at times plays with the fact that you stay up later, because then you start to forget everything which is wrong with you and it becomes easier to focus on one sole task, stripping away the anxiety and harvesting the thoughts away, making life simpler. 

“When people speak of wages it becomes awfully odd when one says that because it involves more of remembering and numbers and patterns it should hold a higher wage, then it starts resembling maths class where you’re supposed to pass and there’s no other way, while people can goof off in art, because in art even if we restrict ourselves, mistakes are harder to do, only the unwilling happen to do so.” I say, trying to hold up on the conversation, explaining in no way why I’m doing art, which causes Damon to seem a bit more interested as he keeps drinking on the small break and I tap my glass, nearly done already. I realize how drained I feel, once I stand up that I barely paid attention to the conversation, looking back and I wobble lightly, Damon nearly grabbing my arm as we past the small crowd of other queers. The queue barely exists but me and Damon stand in it, as the music shifts for a small while, just not to hold silence during the small break. 

“I’ll agree with you on that one, but on hold for now.” It’s something else, it’s not Pet Shop Boys playing now. I wait for Damon to explain, as I shift from one foot to another. Hating any silence or pause between words. “Do you want to dance?”

It’s not that the question is out of the loop considering how many blokes are dancing now together or that I presume we both are into men, but the fact that he still asks and it seems to hold no backbone whatsoever. I blink, trying to see if there is anything and he just shrugs.

“Suit yourself.”

“No, it’s fine, yeah, sure.” I say in pauses, nodding, before he grabs me by the hand, in the odd electronic 90s whatever the bar decided to use as some preliminary dance tune, he drags me onto the dance floor and leans in to whisper something, but then holds back, shaking it away as he still holds my hand as I seem to be lost whether I should make a fool of myself in slow-romantic-but-apparently-not dancing or something else as I look at him a bit lost as Damon manages to get hold of my second hand and now somehow twirl me with one, as I seem to be as gracious as a toad in dry weather.

And my anxiety gets worse as the break ends and Scarfo starts playing again, but we’re tucked in firmly in the crowd as the music seems to assist, making the anxiety silent, barely heard as the music is far too loud and Jamie lets himself go for a bit right away, making the music louder and more open, as I keep my eyes fixed on Damon, but more than occasionally glancing at the attractive frontman. 

The desire to make things right makes hands go numb as belief becomes more than destructive, rinsing with oil. 

Attraction is a broken whirlwind which makes the world stop making sense, drives into a frenzy because until the doubt is gone, the pain which it will bring shall forever be worst, because if being loved is the highest form of pleasure, not being loved is the highest form of banal pain.

And morals are lost, because when you’re not regarded as anything high, you don’t see anyone else either or with desire to change or riot. Idle becomes because there is no point in fighting a war we’ve lost and being tucked in with the lies that we’ll all have wives becomes making us the parasite of society and making us believe in “normal” lives just like Big Brother isn’t real. We make our problems, because trees would never hurt us if we fought them, while humans do. We’re attracted to the worse of pains because we can’t forgive ourselves for lying or raising children which have never breathed or tasted the truth for that matter.

We always imagine something romantic with a stranger because having a thought doesn’t mean being alone in a room. And him pulling me into an awkward dance isn’t helping and it feels in a way how university is supposed to feel only I am surely not a heroine and neither do I want to be and this is surely a gay bar. I keep glancing at Jamie, who doesn’t even notice the crowd anxiously, singing quieter than he should, eyes closed from while to while and I wonder how come his fingers don’t tangle up and bleed from the string as he seems to even more anxious than I am in another man’s arms. I’m sure if I’d concentrate enough I could hear Pete’s close to drunk chatter. 

What if you’ll never feel love back? I had written once in a teenage notebook, just turning a bit over thirteen, wondering and pushing my glasses back so that they wouldn’t fall, playing with all the scattered pens around the homework as the sky had tried to rain but all that could was the gray sphere we were in. Nothing else was crying as it decorated humanity with melancholy and wonder, a reminder that we never knew anything such to a simple question why do we get attracted so easily

and why can’t others get attracted as Damon held my hand tighter and I looked at Jamie’s closed eyes and how his hoops caught the light.

Why can’t there ever be something much more simple like desire rather than a rubik’s cube of something we’ve called love without knowing how it feels like to drain it all and let it absorb ourselves to send us into slumber because we all die alone, allowing the love we’ve felt cushion despair of death.

And how is it so that we can give ourselves to a stranger and they can’t? I glance at Jamie again, before clasping Damon’s hand but it all falls down to the words we say. And what the die allowed us to tell during that turn. You win love, you lose love.

And I’ve yet to hear some warm words back and it’s odd how you can register or at least convince yourself that the other person might be interested from the sole fact that he’s dancing with me, but then it hadn’t worked last time when I had told a friend of mine that I had liked him, convinced that he would feel the same way and in the end he said he’d think of it only for us to never talk of it again and I remember me and Steve had sat and he laughed, blowing bubbles and maybe then I realized how feelings were like paper cut outs of people, they would never match no matter how much you tried to cut it out neatly and there would be more involved in the long triangle,

the song ends and I lean towards Damon as I see him blush lightly but instead I tell him to get the beer finally. 

-

Sorry it took ages to update this which was odd because I had like 2/3 done and the last part took me ages. Since I was on the short hiatus it's rather hard to pick up writing again in binges so in the next few days I'm planning to push out stories to get back on track and it's like there's many stories which need 1-3 k to finish, so I'll be getting there slowly xD

I get annoyed at the whole wage different as if one job deserves more pay and the other doesn't, so yeah, I kind of addressed that through Graham. 

I guess Pet Shop Boys and gay bars root deep within me.

I think when it comes to this story I finished writing it today because I wanted to story tell really and I missed that and that's why everything was just like me telling a story rather than doing links, well, yeah of course I had Jamie how he played in Scarfo in mind and the bleeding I guess comes from his rather harsh strumming really. 

I struggled with who to do Graham's lost love interest simply because I just was feeling a bit melancholic because I do get angry at people who los touch, unfollow and I've helped a lot and then I mused a bit on love and I decided to add that brief line because I wanted to story tell and I had some space left, 100 words short (and anxiously forgot how to write back stories, but I'm doing it xD). Bubbles is a reference to the lovely Placebo photo shoot.

I hope you enjoyed it and thank you so so so much

I hope it was worth the wait and don't worry more to come

<3

Jamie