and there is MORE!
A follow-up to A Curious Life. Not even close to done.
for lifeinwords
Two-Headed Boy
love to be with a brother of mine
how he'd love to find
your tongue in his teeth in a struggle to find
secret songs that you keep wrapped in boxes so tight
sounding only at night as you sleep
--Neutral Milk Hotel
It’s still summer in Portland but it might as well be fall. Seth finds money and excuses to buy sweaters in dark grey and black with nubbly textures, little knit caps that he pulls low over his ears as though he’ll block out the murmurs in his brain.
Seth goes out with Luke and is introduced to Luke's new cronies: stocky jock-types with friendly smiles, who take Seth's hand and shake it like he counts. Like Seth isn't the scrawny kid who spent summers with his nose in a pile of comics and falls with his head in a trash can or toilet bowl.
The whole being-respected thing? He could seriously get used to that.
But no matter how Seth kicks and screams and rattles off evidence why Portland has turned him into a new man, his head still always pulls him back to the moments that he doesn't want to remember.
He knows he still dreams because when he wakes up his sheets are in a tangle at the end of the metal-barred futon where he sleeps. Luke’s gay dad’s apartment isn’t altogether horrible - at least after the first three hellish nights fighting it out with the berber carpet that covered Luke's floor, he ended up with a bed, or a reasonable facsimile of one, rather than an air mattress on the floor.
But that’s another piece of Ryan, and Seth doesn’t think of Ryan. Not Ryan in Chino, not Ryan spooned around Theresa's sleeping body, his hand over the curving mound of her belly.
Not Ryan as he turned around and walked out the Seth’s bedroom door; not of the way Seth desperately wanted to press his nose against his bedroom window to watch as Ryan walked down the Cohen’s driveway, scrabbling for a last glimpse of narrow shoulders and sandy hair.
Not any of that. He wonders if he sticks his fingers in his ears and hums loud enough, tuneless childhood hymns without lyrics about love and loss, if they will drown the thoughts out.
He tries too hard and wakes up in the dark with his hands cupped over his ears, body trembling. A large hand is on his back and he rolls over, blinks until his eyes adjust and he can finally place where he is.
“You have to stop, Cohen. You’re freaking me out.” Luke leans across Seth’s body and flips on a desk lamp made of reflective chrome. Leave it to Luke’s gay dad to go the all leather-and-chrome route. Or maybe that was Luke. Seth never trusted Luke to have good taste.
Seth rolls onto his stomach, pulls his pillow so that it covers his face.
“I was a lifeguard, remember? Hey, do you need one of those mouth things so you don’t choke on your tongue?”
“Luke. I’m not having a seizure.” The down fill muffles his words, and the pillowcase rubs harshly against his tongue.
“I’m just sayin’…”
Seth suddenly feels too tight in his skin, shucks off the covers and jerks up so he’s nose-to-nose with Luke. His nostrils flare and he wants to scream, scream so loud that it wakes the complex but his lungs won’t take in air and his voice locks up so he rocks back and forth slowly before he realizes his hands are wrapped around Luke’s shoulders, his fingernails making little half-moon circles in Luke’s bare flesh.
“Just…just…” Seth mutters as he rocks, his hands clamped onto Luke, who is wide-eyed. “Just leave me alone.” The “alone” cracks as it escapes his throat and Seth falls limply into Luke’s bare chest, eyes screwed shut.
Luke’s chest is warm and a little sticky against Seth’s cheek, and Seth can feel the air hiss out of Luke’s lungs, hear the thumping of Luke’s heart.
Luke is warm. Seth wants to settle in and sleep soundly until morning, curl around Luke’s solid body just to feel something again. Luke’s hand is on Seth’s lower back, tentative, a finger straying below the hem of Seth’s t-shirt and across the skin of Seth’s back. Seth’s heart skips and races, he thinks weakly of a joke, “we have to stop meeting like this,” before remembering Julie Cooper and Luke’s laundry list of Newport indiscretions, snapping back to reality.
It's nothing. It's nothing. But it's not.
Luke is not Ryan, and the nothing they’re doing - whatever it is, it goes beyond comfort, and Seth is there, wanting it, encouraging it, and if he goes to sleep now they won’t mention it, and if they don’t sleep and do something else instead, they won’t mention it. So what does it matter? What does it matter? The thought hangs, rattling in Seth's head for what seems like an eternity. Their breath matches, rises and falls together, Luke’s hand tightens on Seth’s back, his fingertips digging into the notches of Seth's spine.
But Seth is still scared, and he stiffens, yanks his body away from Luke’s, scrabbles for the sheets for something to hold and buries himself in mounds of cotton sateen.
Seth’s body stays tense until he feels Luke stand. The light snaps off, the wooden floor creaks, and Luke crosses the room to go back to his bed.
When he finally sleeps he dreams of Ryan. They are back on the deck of the Summer Breeze and the air is salt and tangy in Seth’s lungs as he coughs. He dreams of their breath slowing and meeting, as Ryan is draped on top of him, their legs tangled and wet, the droplets of water glistening in the sun. Seth is warm and numb and he is not sure where he ends and Ryan begins.
Brother see we are one and the same
He wants to shout and ask Ryan questions like why he left and why it’s cold without him and why is he still floating alone on this boat but then he realizes Ryan is there, and the motion of the sea stops mocking him and rocks them like a lullaby or two lovers moving together.
And Ryan’s hand runs over Seth’s face, wiping away green threads of the sea and his mouth is small and open on Seth’s and Seth cups Ryan’s face in his hands and breathes in Ryan, and breathes in, and breathes.
*
for lifeinwords
Two-Headed Boy
love to be with a brother of mine
how he'd love to find
your tongue in his teeth in a struggle to find
secret songs that you keep wrapped in boxes so tight
sounding only at night as you sleep
--Neutral Milk Hotel
It’s still summer in Portland but it might as well be fall. Seth finds money and excuses to buy sweaters in dark grey and black with nubbly textures, little knit caps that he pulls low over his ears as though he’ll block out the murmurs in his brain.
Seth goes out with Luke and is introduced to Luke's new cronies: stocky jock-types with friendly smiles, who take Seth's hand and shake it like he counts. Like Seth isn't the scrawny kid who spent summers with his nose in a pile of comics and falls with his head in a trash can or toilet bowl.
The whole being-respected thing? He could seriously get used to that.
But no matter how Seth kicks and screams and rattles off evidence why Portland has turned him into a new man, his head still always pulls him back to the moments that he doesn't want to remember.
He knows he still dreams because when he wakes up his sheets are in a tangle at the end of the metal-barred futon where he sleeps. Luke’s gay dad’s apartment isn’t altogether horrible - at least after the first three hellish nights fighting it out with the berber carpet that covered Luke's floor, he ended up with a bed, or a reasonable facsimile of one, rather than an air mattress on the floor.
But that’s another piece of Ryan, and Seth doesn’t think of Ryan. Not Ryan in Chino, not Ryan spooned around Theresa's sleeping body, his hand over the curving mound of her belly.
Not Ryan as he turned around and walked out the Seth’s bedroom door; not of the way Seth desperately wanted to press his nose against his bedroom window to watch as Ryan walked down the Cohen’s driveway, scrabbling for a last glimpse of narrow shoulders and sandy hair.
Not any of that. He wonders if he sticks his fingers in his ears and hums loud enough, tuneless childhood hymns without lyrics about love and loss, if they will drown the thoughts out.
He tries too hard and wakes up in the dark with his hands cupped over his ears, body trembling. A large hand is on his back and he rolls over, blinks until his eyes adjust and he can finally place where he is.
“You have to stop, Cohen. You’re freaking me out.” Luke leans across Seth’s body and flips on a desk lamp made of reflective chrome. Leave it to Luke’s gay dad to go the all leather-and-chrome route. Or maybe that was Luke. Seth never trusted Luke to have good taste.
Seth rolls onto his stomach, pulls his pillow so that it covers his face.
“I was a lifeguard, remember? Hey, do you need one of those mouth things so you don’t choke on your tongue?”
“Luke. I’m not having a seizure.” The down fill muffles his words, and the pillowcase rubs harshly against his tongue.
“I’m just sayin’…”
Seth suddenly feels too tight in his skin, shucks off the covers and jerks up so he’s nose-to-nose with Luke. His nostrils flare and he wants to scream, scream so loud that it wakes the complex but his lungs won’t take in air and his voice locks up so he rocks back and forth slowly before he realizes his hands are wrapped around Luke’s shoulders, his fingernails making little half-moon circles in Luke’s bare flesh.
“Just…just…” Seth mutters as he rocks, his hands clamped onto Luke, who is wide-eyed. “Just leave me alone.” The “alone” cracks as it escapes his throat and Seth falls limply into Luke’s bare chest, eyes screwed shut.
Luke’s chest is warm and a little sticky against Seth’s cheek, and Seth can feel the air hiss out of Luke’s lungs, hear the thumping of Luke’s heart.
Luke is warm. Seth wants to settle in and sleep soundly until morning, curl around Luke’s solid body just to feel something again. Luke’s hand is on Seth’s lower back, tentative, a finger straying below the hem of Seth’s t-shirt and across the skin of Seth’s back. Seth’s heart skips and races, he thinks weakly of a joke, “we have to stop meeting like this,” before remembering Julie Cooper and Luke’s laundry list of Newport indiscretions, snapping back to reality.
It's nothing. It's nothing. But it's not.
Luke is not Ryan, and the nothing they’re doing - whatever it is, it goes beyond comfort, and Seth is there, wanting it, encouraging it, and if he goes to sleep now they won’t mention it, and if they don’t sleep and do something else instead, they won’t mention it. So what does it matter? What does it matter? The thought hangs, rattling in Seth's head for what seems like an eternity. Their breath matches, rises and falls together, Luke’s hand tightens on Seth’s back, his fingertips digging into the notches of Seth's spine.
But Seth is still scared, and he stiffens, yanks his body away from Luke’s, scrabbles for the sheets for something to hold and buries himself in mounds of cotton sateen.
Seth’s body stays tense until he feels Luke stand. The light snaps off, the wooden floor creaks, and Luke crosses the room to go back to his bed.
When he finally sleeps he dreams of Ryan. They are back on the deck of the Summer Breeze and the air is salt and tangy in Seth’s lungs as he coughs. He dreams of their breath slowing and meeting, as Ryan is draped on top of him, their legs tangled and wet, the droplets of water glistening in the sun. Seth is warm and numb and he is not sure where he ends and Ryan begins.
Brother see we are one and the same
He wants to shout and ask Ryan questions like why he left and why it’s cold without him and why is he still floating alone on this boat but then he realizes Ryan is there, and the motion of the sea stops mocking him and rocks them like a lullaby or two lovers moving together.
And Ryan’s hand runs over Seth’s face, wiping away green threads of the sea and his mouth is small and open on Seth’s and Seth cups Ryan’s face in his hands and breathes in Ryan, and breathes in, and breathes.
*