Heres how it goes.

Youre in a bar with a beautiful boy, and youre not supposed to want him, but
you do. Youre battered, bruised, and dirty all over but hes clean, wears soft
pastels, garish yellows, shoes that some assholes already worn to death a halfcentury ago. You marvel at the soft texture of his hands as they travel over your
face tentatively, fingertips grazing the scars half-hidden by barely-there stubble;
ivy sprouting over an antiquated house. In his hands, you feel antique; precious,
well used, fragile. He smiles, and speaks of poems, of verbs dancing with nouns,
of the fresh scent of roses in spring. You speak of broken bones, broken hearts,
broken bedposts.
Somewhere in the middle of all this is love.
-Youve never been one for social conventions, especially ones as stupid as the
age-old how did we get here? Maybe hes got time for that your pink, pastel
poet who looks so beautiful undressed but you sure as shit havent. Live in the
moment, live for today. Fall into bed with him, fuck him with reckless abandon,
and leave. Put your clothes back on, leave a mess.
Youve become exceptionally good at the last part; and as his hands rut beneath
your shirt, youre already planning your escape. Your eyes glance for his phone,
his wallet, a pack of cigarettes.
Thats until he kisses you, at least.
-His body fits to yours comfortably. Comfortably thats exactly the word for it.
You wonder how he acclimatises to you so quickly, knows where to touch you and
just the words to whisper. His attention to the harsh planes of your body
transcends anything beyond pure intuition. Its devotion, its reverence, its
confidence confidence in his power over you, his ability to make you want so
desperately in just a curve of his fingers. He never fails to astonish you, this
foppish slender boy with his softly scented skin, the strength beneath his pretty
lashes. He never gives you relief without a fight, and he dares you, dares you to
hold him. Youve never been a slave to anything, but as he presses you down
beneath him, youre entombed in your own confusion, your own ecstacy, and
regardless of what this is, you decide youd like to keep him.
Hes decided youre his far before that.
--

You shower him in fineries new waistcoats, new watches, books that arent to
your taste whatsoever. You encourage his vices wholeheartedly; tasting the
alcohol on his breath, finding him in bed one morning with one of your expensive
Russian cigarettes dangling provocatively from his lips youve never been one
to share, but hes very persuasive with his hands when the mood strikes him. He
talks to you about poetry, about the power of words, about how beautiful the
view is over the Charles River first thing on a rainy morning. You listen halfheartedly, wonder how words spring so effortlessly to his lips, to the crevices in
his face as he smiles. You kiss him more frequently, remove his clothes quickly,
give him cigarettes in the gaps where words would easily suffice.
He never asks why. He never asks why, when, how. You like that, and you kiss
him in recompense.
-He kisses the smoke from your mouth, the blood from your knuckles, the
violence from your fists. Each word he whispers against your collarbone is a
hushed benediction, an elegy for the you, the tyrannous, vicious you that you
choose to leave outside in the cloakroom when youre together, because he
stares, he notices, he understands. To him, you are more than just the red on
your switchblade, the profanities between your lips. To him, you are more, and he
tells you this, he writes this between the bruises on your wrists. He writes this
over and over, and kisses each one you are more, a kiss. More, another kiss.
Your eyes are hardened, cynical; a contrast to the depths of his, the bottomless
devotion that he shows you. He believes when you do not.
You see these on your bare arms the next morning more, more, more and you
begin to wonder if he may be right.
-A word finally springs to mind love. In that instant, you realise that all other
words are abject; what other term can cover the poetry he sends you, the poetry
you pretend to never read? What other word fully encompasses the way he
kisses you with his eyes closed? You feel sick; reach for a bottle. You wonder just
how a boy who wears his heart on his sleeve the sleeve of his fucking ugly
sweaters - has managed to move you, managed to touch your heart in turn. Your
best defences were not, are not, ready for a smile so dissembling. Your head
pounds; you sit, think. You dont think you act.
You write him a poem of your own. Its clumsy, each word moving into the next
you try so hard to write in that iambic pentameter nonsense he keeps harking on
about - and the lines are fragmented and detached and youre fairly sure they
only roll off your tongue because its so loose, so heavy in your mouth. You shake
your head; send it to his inbox without a thought.

The gravity of what youve done suddenly hits you consequences and
repercussions are things that you have, over time, become so expertly
impervious to. Days and days of waking up next to a tousled mess of sandyblonde hair, of waking up to the scent of cinnamon and smoke suddenly
nauseate you, now that each one has a meaning, a motivation, an emotion. You
handle this in the most responsible way you know how; you drink more more,
more, more and slump in your drunken frustration, lying for what seems like
hours.
When you wake (it is hours, after all) you wince as your first thought is for him,
how worried he must be. You roll your eyes, roll over.
Oh, for fucks sake.
--

work in progress paragraph here.

-You kiss him passionately, fervently (words you werent familiar with before him)
in front of God, and everyone else. Theres less biting, less savagery
sometimes, if you close your eyes and grit your teeth, your lips are even soft. You
awaken in his sweater, the wool ticklish against your throat. You rip it off. Its an
ugly fucking thing, you spit, and your hands ball into fists because hes laughing,
the little shit, hes fucking laughing at you but you see your unwashed hands,
see the more more more and you pause. He notices your wrists; kisses you. You
rinse and repeat; you rinse, he repeats, Keats and Auden and Cummings against
your slender flank, the crevices in your hips. And then finally, Prouvaire his
words the most eloquent of all, breathy against your lips. You dont know what
half of them mean, but you dont have to because theyre yours, they always
have been. He whispers your name. Montparnasse. In his mouth it sounds
swollen, amplified your name means more than it ever has done, ever will do to
anybody else. Its poetry. Your name is poetry; artistic, eloquent, beautiful. You
feel thoroughly contented.
-Under his hands, you wonder who you are, repent for all you ever were. This is
either salvation, or purgatory. Neither seem like enemies. Youre cleansed, you
murmur between his thighs; youre purged.
Youve never been afraid of anything, and with him at your side tenacious,
empathetic Prouvaire you realise that you lied. You are afraid of losing this
feeling, losing this god beneath your fingers.

Your god, you think proudly.

-That evening, he pushes you into bed. He kisses the ends of your fingertips with
reverence, takes your wounds tenderly between his lips, as if hes able to cure
you of them.
You wonder if he knows theyre for him.
--

(Theres a hem loose on your jumper, you notice, and you pick at it absently with
callused fingers, a flower unravelling from its centre outwards. Youre walking
along, minding your own business, but a familiar face stops you. Youve always
liked faces; people with ill-fitting features attract you most. The man in front of
you looks as if hes been ripped apart and thrown unceremoniously back
together, his blue eyes barely discernible under the sea of red and purple that
envelops them. He implores you to look at him, wild-eyed and melancholy.)
(You pause stop, think; shrug nonchalantly, keep walking.)
(Its just a coincidence.)

--

--

Youre in a crowded room, a room with a pulse. Hes staring at you from the other
side, one of your expensive Russian cigarettes dangling provocatively from his
lips youve never been one to share, but hes very persuasive with his hands
when the mood strikes him. You want to shove him against the wall, bite that
smirk from his face. He smiles, and exhales slowly.
You can hardly move in this fucking room; bodies are close, compact against
yours, writhing against each other in sultry formations that obstruct your view of
him. You shove your way viciously through the crowd; but nobodys moving, not
even for you if they knew who you were, theyd part like the fucking Red Sea.
You sigh lady Fates obviously not on your side tonight, is she? and you cut
your way through with the click of a switchblade knife. Youd notice that each
body falls to a different rhythm, if you werent so preoccupied with how bloody

the hems of your trousers were. Still, youre enjoying yourself, and hes not
distracted either, observing your aggressive features quietly behind a haze of
cigarette smoke.
Your shoes make no noise as you walk tranquilly towards him; their wails do
though, seem to harmonise as you envelop him in the scent of tobacco, in the
folds of your jacket. Theres a fleck of blood on your lips. He wipes it away
unabashedly, and smiles.
Reds your colour, he murmurs, and you cant help but think just how damn
poetic it is to kiss slowly in a crowded room, a room of red, bloody welts.
You wake up, and wonder what the fuck youre doing.
-Two hits, and the fucker goes down.
Hes shrieking at you as if he doesnt know what hes done wrong, as if he wasnt
staring at your Jehan with those eyes, lashes laced with sin and covetousness.
You punch them shut, wondering if hell ever look on another man again,
enjoying the sickening crunch of bone upon bone, the intoxicating scent of blood
on the first four knuckles.
Youre right, you think, as you look at his lifeless pulp of a face. I am more, and
you smile at your wounded hands, fists now reinforced with the steel of lovers
words.
-Theres a shift in dynamic, a change in the air. Youve always been adaptable to
change, embracing it where others fear it.
After receiving a thorough admonishing from him and Christ, youre tempted to
just leave him for the night because he wont shut up he curls up next to you,
his braid tickling the tender, well-kissed spot below your jaw, whispering I love
you with a simplicity that you envy, have always envied.