Moments Like This
He's always telling me what a fucked up place the world is, and usually I agree. But sometimes, when I'm with him, I dare to think otherwise. I don't voice this because he might tell me I'm crazy, or that he doesn't feel it too. I know he does though. I know he feels it by the way he smiles at me when we're alone, and I know he feels it by the way his hands run down my chest in a motion that makes me feel human. Truly human. Truly alive. By the way we can talk for hours on end, the way his voice sounds when he sighs, and even the way the smoke slowly seeps out of his lips after a drag. It all reminds me of who he is, and the way he makes my world a better place. We're not popular and he's never saved a life, but the way his arm drapes around me as he plays with the tassels on my jumper make him a hero. The world, my world, isn't such a fucked up place when I remember there're people like him in it.
He usually invites me over on the weekend and we sit on his bedroom floor, smoking cigarettes and rotating through his Joy Division records over and over again until we can't stand them anymore. I lean against his chest and his hand runs up and down my arm and, just through that gesture, I can't recall anyone else who's ever made me feel so loved. 'Do you want to turn it off?' He asks me, like always waiting until it gets dark.
'Sure.' I say, like it's routine. Well, it may as well be. He moves the needle from the disc and slips the disc back into its case. Long, spidery fingers working delicately and methodically to put everything back in order. He looks at me and neither of us speak, an unspoken agreement already in place, one that says words are unnecessary. He knows me in a way I don't even know myself, and I know him. I have every detail of his face burned into my memory and the colour of his eyes haunt me in my sleep, inducing the most invigorating dreams.
Maybe the conformists are right, maybe the world isn't fucked up at all, maybe it's all just us. Maybe we don't belong here. I don't care either way, whether we're meant to be here or meant to be somewhere else, I know we're meant to be together. This is an indisputable fact of life.
The silence isn't silent as long as I can hear his breathing, and this creates the perfect atmosphere. He must feel it too as he leans forwards and engulfs my entire existence in a kiss. An action that, for the shortest of moments, morphs us into one. It doesn't last long, and as we separate again I can still feel fragments of him left behind, replacing in me the parts I just gave to him. The palm of his hand presses against my cheek and I feel his energy break through my blotchy skin, shooting through to my core. As his fingers trace lines under my eye his energy makes patterns in my veins. I close my eyes for a moment and take some time to embrace this feeling, imagining that there is nothing beyond this room, just us, our cigarettes, and the candles illuminating his imperfect features. No school, no parents, no society, just two boys together in their own secret world.
My phone buzzes and the moment ends, his hand retracting and our connection once again becoming slack. 'Same time next week?' He asks. I nod, and our world is closed down for the night.
It got me thinking about a task we were supposed to do in English class, the prompt was: a day in your ideal world. I didn't do it, of course, but if I had of I think I know what my answer would have been. How I can capture what I feel with him.
There are no cars. No bikes. No noise. Nothing and no one beyond us and the room we reside in. The windows and doors are closed and I can barely see beyond the length of my arm from the smoke steadily filling it, like an early morning fog. It's our own personal mist, emitting from his nose and mouth after every puff he takes from the cigarette in his hand. My throat's already burning from the smoke in the air, but he passes the stick to me anyway. I put it to my lips and take in a breath, not because I want to, but because that's how things go. The flame's getting closer and the smoke burns my mouth like I've taken a sip out of a kettle, only the heat continues down my throat and into my chest. My eyes are stinging now. He laughs. I get to hear his rare, intoxicating laugh.
'You can stub it out if you want. I've got more.' He says. Of course he has more.
I nod and do as he says. He lights up another one and we go back to our comfortable silence, the smoke's now so strong we're unable to breath, and barely able to make out the silhouettes of each other. In situations like this, we feel calm.
Like I said before, there're no one else in the world, no conformists, no family, no other friends; just us, together, smoking on his bedroom floor. The smoke alarms won't ring, our parents won't yell, and I'll never have to go home. We can just sit here, alone together, in our own murky heaven.
This is just my fantasy though, and all good things must come to an end.
As I walk back to the trailer park it starts to rain. I lift my head up towards the sky and embrace the cold. I close my eyes and feel every individual droplet slipping down my face. I feel the moistening of every particle of fabric on my shirt. I'm alone on the street, and even though I'm not with him anymore, I still feel like my dreams come true.
I saw him, he kissed me, now I'm alone in the rain. The feelings he gave me still linger in the desolate atmosphere I, and my other three friends, carry. It'll leave me once I get home and have to face reality again. But right now, I'm really fucking happy.
