(no subject)
skeletons + shit
ryan/brendon.
1109 words.
this is how i feel about writer's block.
he puts the pen to the paper, the pill to the esophagus, pin to wrist,
noose to neck, and he writes symphonies and sonnets and novels.
---
brendon is as white as the walls, as the sheets when he comes to visit.
"you gotta stop this shit ryan".
and ryan blinks, newborn eyelashes against his cheeks, "did you read
it?"
"no, I didn't fucking read it. jesus, is that all think about?"
brendon turns from white, to egg shell, to a soft pink; the same pink as
the girl's lips ryan first kissed only he thinks lovelier.
"generally, yes".
---
it started one night when ryan drank a whole bottle of scotch and wrote
four songs and a short story in his stupor before vomiting up his own
liver and being rushed to the emergency room for alcohol poisoning.
"you know kid," says the paramedic reading the sheets of paper stuffed
inside ryan's breast pocket (of what they assume is a suicide letter,
his final bow, a grand adieu), "this is pretty good."
"really?" ryan asks before he blacks out and they put all his organs back
inside his chest and the paper, well they put that in there too.
---
"so," brendon asks, "you can only write when you're close to death?".
"pretty much".
its the fourth time they've hung out outside of the band and if brendon
was a girl ryan would assume this was going steady, and if ryan was a
girl brendon would be asking if he could feel him up in the backseat of
his car.
"what if you go too far one day," asks brendon, eating the last of
ryan's sandwich, "chop your hand off with the razor by accident or
something?".
brendon asks all the questions no one else does, and says it in this
honest obnoxious way that ryan always feels that he has to tell the
truth.
"well at least I would have created something beautiful" he shrugs,
"look at sylvia plath, or kurt cobain, or virginia woolfe, they all
created something great before their demise".
brendon frowns, "they're also dead, like skeletons and shit.”
and then quietly, “you're too wonderful to die”.
"your eloquence is astounding" smiles ryan and kisses the corner of
brendon's mouth and it tastes like red bull and autumn, and christmas
cookies and the last bite of his sandwich.
---
after this brendon tries to keep ryan away from knives, barbitutes, and
cruise ships; tries to keep the bones and organs inside the skin rather
than in the dirt.
---
"hello?"
"mr. urie?"
"yes?"
"this is nurse jones from the local hospital, you better come down, he's
done it again".
---
"ryan, ryan, ryan" the doctor tisks when he awakes, "what have you
written this time?".
ryan puts his hands inside his jacket, produces a note book and a
handful of half digested percs that stick to his palm in a sticky mess.
"this ones good," the doctor says, reading the messy scrawl upside down,
"I know I should tell you to stop but you wouldn't listen would you?"
"no, probably not sir".
and the doctor smiles, "does this say sparrow or sorrow?"
---
ryan ties a rope around his neck and jumps from the tree in his
backyard, the sweet premise of a hospital bed and a literary masterpiece
behind his eyelids.
---
"is this all you wrote kid?" asks the paramedic as they drive to the
hospital, ryan on a ventilator, violent purple and yellow bruises
forming on his collarbone.
he nods slightly.
"not your best work" says the paramedic and puts the words back into ryan's pocket.
---
the next month ryan swallows a bottle of pills, drinks bleach and throws
himself out of his bedroom window; waking only to find blank paper in
his pockets + the words still locked in his chest.
this he figures is how it feels to want to die.
--
"you look like shit" brendon says solmenly.
"I feel like shit" ryan replies; his skin is sallow and heavy and yellow, some parts still purple and flushed from where he hit the concrete outside his bedroom window.
"it's not working anymore ryan".
and he knows, knows it when he sits down at his typewriters, dictions
and convictions stumped at his fingertips. he turns his hands over and
remembers when he cut his wrist with a pink lady gilette razor, down
down down the street and the scars look like spiderwebs stuck to his
skin.
so he thinks of running through a woods, and its dark + cold, and
everything is touching him, and brendon is touching him, buttons undone,
and holding his breathe, and running, running, running till its just
skin on skin; again + again.
and in the afterglow brendon sticks to him like spiderwebs, like scars,
like words, like all the beautiful things he's ever wanted to say but had to swallow knives to be able to.
---
ryan stops looking like a boy + starts looking like a corpse in
december, the purpler gets darker under his eyes and fingernails; the
yellow spreads like paint beneath his rotten skin.
and he figures this is it, he's reached the end of rope and any chance
of creating something wonderful ebbs away like his pulse, fainter and
fainter with every beat + echo.
ryan wants to cry + spit + be ugly, wants to shake and wants to be
held.
so he runs and runs and runs, through the woods, through his woods; and
trees and sticks and thistles catch his skin and breathe.
with split knees and dirt under his fingernails, he climbs up to
brendon's window and pushes himself inside, exhausted and so very close
to death.
"fuck, you look more like death every time I see you" brendon says,
un-nerved, never missing a beat in what is ryan ross's very long and
very drawn out suicide.
"what are we?" asks ryan.
"boys".
"more than that" ryan splutters.
brendon shuts the window behind ryan, takes off his coat, "we're skin,
and blood, red blood cells and then the white, were muscles and
ligaments and sinews, were bones and marrow, nerves and veins and
capillaries, lungs and livers and lovers, were the mitosis that's
producing every cell in your body + watching in exasperation as you try
to destroy it".
"is that all?" ryan asks and everything creates, lives and dies beneath
his skin.
so he bites his lip, hard, and blood spills out, gushes into his mouth, sticks to brendon's hands and his hands, all of it awash in this ruby glow.
and it's red, the most beautiful red, and he's alive.
ryan/brendon.
1109 words.
this is how i feel about writer's block.
he puts the pen to the paper, the pill to the esophagus, pin to wrist,
noose to neck, and he writes symphonies and sonnets and novels.
---
brendon is as white as the walls, as the sheets when he comes to visit.
"you gotta stop this shit ryan".
and ryan blinks, newborn eyelashes against his cheeks, "did you read
it?"
"no, I didn't fucking read it. jesus, is that all think about?"
brendon turns from white, to egg shell, to a soft pink; the same pink as
the girl's lips ryan first kissed only he thinks lovelier.
"generally, yes".
---
it started one night when ryan drank a whole bottle of scotch and wrote
four songs and a short story in his stupor before vomiting up his own
liver and being rushed to the emergency room for alcohol poisoning.
"you know kid," says the paramedic reading the sheets of paper stuffed
inside ryan's breast pocket (of what they assume is a suicide letter,
his final bow, a grand adieu), "this is pretty good."
"really?" ryan asks before he blacks out and they put all his organs back
inside his chest and the paper, well they put that in there too.
---
"so," brendon asks, "you can only write when you're close to death?".
"pretty much".
its the fourth time they've hung out outside of the band and if brendon
was a girl ryan would assume this was going steady, and if ryan was a
girl brendon would be asking if he could feel him up in the backseat of
his car.
"what if you go too far one day," asks brendon, eating the last of
ryan's sandwich, "chop your hand off with the razor by accident or
something?".
brendon asks all the questions no one else does, and says it in this
honest obnoxious way that ryan always feels that he has to tell the
truth.
"well at least I would have created something beautiful" he shrugs,
"look at sylvia plath, or kurt cobain, or virginia woolfe, they all
created something great before their demise".
brendon frowns, "they're also dead, like skeletons and shit.”
and then quietly, “you're too wonderful to die”.
"your eloquence is astounding" smiles ryan and kisses the corner of
brendon's mouth and it tastes like red bull and autumn, and christmas
cookies and the last bite of his sandwich.
---
after this brendon tries to keep ryan away from knives, barbitutes, and
cruise ships; tries to keep the bones and organs inside the skin rather
than in the dirt.
---
"hello?"
"mr. urie?"
"yes?"
"this is nurse jones from the local hospital, you better come down, he's
done it again".
---
"ryan, ryan, ryan" the doctor tisks when he awakes, "what have you
written this time?".
ryan puts his hands inside his jacket, produces a note book and a
handful of half digested percs that stick to his palm in a sticky mess.
"this ones good," the doctor says, reading the messy scrawl upside down,
"I know I should tell you to stop but you wouldn't listen would you?"
"no, probably not sir".
and the doctor smiles, "does this say sparrow or sorrow?"
---
ryan ties a rope around his neck and jumps from the tree in his
backyard, the sweet premise of a hospital bed and a literary masterpiece
behind his eyelids.
---
"is this all you wrote kid?" asks the paramedic as they drive to the
hospital, ryan on a ventilator, violent purple and yellow bruises
forming on his collarbone.
he nods slightly.
"not your best work" says the paramedic and puts the words back into ryan's pocket.
---
the next month ryan swallows a bottle of pills, drinks bleach and throws
himself out of his bedroom window; waking only to find blank paper in
his pockets + the words still locked in his chest.
this he figures is how it feels to want to die.
--
"you look like shit" brendon says solmenly.
"I feel like shit" ryan replies; his skin is sallow and heavy and yellow, some parts still purple and flushed from where he hit the concrete outside his bedroom window.
"it's not working anymore ryan".
and he knows, knows it when he sits down at his typewriters, dictions
and convictions stumped at his fingertips. he turns his hands over and
remembers when he cut his wrist with a pink lady gilette razor, down
down down the street and the scars look like spiderwebs stuck to his
skin.
so he thinks of running through a woods, and its dark + cold, and
everything is touching him, and brendon is touching him, buttons undone,
and holding his breathe, and running, running, running till its just
skin on skin; again + again.
and in the afterglow brendon sticks to him like spiderwebs, like scars,
like words, like all the beautiful things he's ever wanted to say but had to swallow knives to be able to.
---
ryan stops looking like a boy + starts looking like a corpse in
december, the purpler gets darker under his eyes and fingernails; the
yellow spreads like paint beneath his rotten skin.
and he figures this is it, he's reached the end of rope and any chance
of creating something wonderful ebbs away like his pulse, fainter and
fainter with every beat + echo.
ryan wants to cry + spit + be ugly, wants to shake and wants to be
held.
so he runs and runs and runs, through the woods, through his woods; and
trees and sticks and thistles catch his skin and breathe.
with split knees and dirt under his fingernails, he climbs up to
brendon's window and pushes himself inside, exhausted and so very close
to death.
"fuck, you look more like death every time I see you" brendon says,
un-nerved, never missing a beat in what is ryan ross's very long and
very drawn out suicide.
"what are we?" asks ryan.
"boys".
"more than that" ryan splutters.
brendon shuts the window behind ryan, takes off his coat, "we're skin,
and blood, red blood cells and then the white, were muscles and
ligaments and sinews, were bones and marrow, nerves and veins and
capillaries, lungs and livers and lovers, were the mitosis that's
producing every cell in your body + watching in exasperation as you try
to destroy it".
"is that all?" ryan asks and everything creates, lives and dies beneath
his skin.
so he bites his lip, hard, and blood spills out, gushes into his mouth, sticks to brendon's hands and his hands, all of it awash in this ruby glow.
and it's red, the most beautiful red, and he's alive.