by Seth King
We are still figuring out how to transition from friends to partners, yes. Sometimes I don’t know the exact right thing to say, and I can feel that sometimes he doesn’t know how he should touch me in a certain moment. For some reason, all this has dug up his old fears and terrors about his mom, too, and sometimes he gets anxiety nightmares that make him wake up screaming. But we are getting there, and what we are finding is blowing my world open. But he is here, and I am a poet now.
Yes, you heard me correctly – I’ve listened to Beau’s advice, and I am putting all my thoughts into verse. I will never show a soul, though, because our light and our magic and our love – it all belongs to us. My poetry is only for him – I am his personal poet laureate. In fact, I leave my poetry notebook on our bedside table every morning so he can sink into my feelings for him whenever he wants to. And sometimes I sit there and watch him silently, just observing him enjoy my account of what it is like to love him through my own eyes. And I hope I will never have to stop. His happiness means more to me than my own happiness does now. And as long as he’s good, I’m good, too. Who knows, maybe I’ll publish a copy of all my poems one day – only for him, though. One copy only.
On a Friday in September, I hastily tie up my bike and run up the steps to our building. I dash up the stairs to our unit, and there he is – well, his voice at least, as he attempts to cook in the kitchen. His cooking attempts aren’t getting any better, but I’m trying not to say anything. I will eat one million burned grilled cheese sandwiches if it means getting to be with him, and getting to avoid the future I saw in that nightmarish fever-dream. I don’t care about the details anymore, because we are living now – living in a way I never knew to be possible. Who thought one random hookup could’ve led to a whole new life? Or maybe we already knew it. Maybe we always knew it. Maybe we just needed some cheap vodka and some bravado to help force it out of ourselves…
I reach into my pocket and play with the gift I made him this morning, just because. After his parents died, Beau had a bit of a meltdown and poured water on most of the pictures he had of them, overcome with what I guessed was anger and helplessness and confusion. So the pictures he has of them now, he can count on two hands. But last night, as I sifted through some of my old things, I found a shot that took my breath away – it was me, Beau, and Beau’s mom, on a dock out in the Sea Islands somewhere. We were light-haired and tiny, laughing and yelling as his mom pulled in a tiny little fish. We looked so happy, so…pure, that I knew I was going to frame it and give it to Beau just as soon as I could. He is the biggest part of my past, and I hope to God we can be each other’s futures – just in a different way. A new way. A perfect way.
I found a quote recently from a writer named John Whittier: “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.’” It made me think of that awful vision I had on the bus just before I professed myself to Beau, and now I know what that dream was: it was my subconscious willing me to do anything I could to avoid the lifetime of regret I’d live if I didn’t try to make this work. Now, I pray I will never know regret’s name again. All I want to befriend is bravery. And to be honest, I’m proud of myself. I’m proud of us. Comfort zones are for boring people. We took the leap, and now we are finding a whole new frontier outside of the old lines that used to block us in…
In the entry hallway I think back to the younger version of me, the little boy who was a little different and didn’t know what to do about it. The boy who was an invisible nerd until Beau arrived on my street. The boy who was alone sometimes, who would get left behind and didn’t understand why. The boy who sometimes felt things for his best friend and tried to hide those things, to stamp them out like a lit cigarette on a sidewalk, because that friend happened to be a boy. That boy was so afraid, so alone, that he didn’t even recognize the love he felt all along in his own chest for that friend. Looking back, I wish I could find that boy, that terrified version of me. I would walk up to him as he stared out at the playground or lay in his bed burying his feelings in a book, and I would tell him there was nothing wrong with him at all. In fact, I would dazzle him with the future. I would tell him that one day, a time would come when he didn’t hate the “different” parts of himself at all – and that one day, he would open himself to the love he felt for that friend, and that the friend would open himself, too, and that their love would light up a whole world…
I round the corner into the kitchen, where Beau leans against the sink in nothing but an apron, singing along to this awful disco-pop song. Oh, yes, I know straight where this is going tonight – but first I want to dance with him, even if his taste in music has always been hilariously awful. But from kindergarten finger paintings to teenage trampoline dreams to one shared adulthood, lived within a different kind of love – in this moment I feel without a doubt that everything has led to here.
“Stop that right now,” I say into his ear by way of greeting, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him into me.
“Why, babe?” he asks into my mouth as we kiss. I squeeze him even closer and inhale the soapy scent of the guy who was my best friend, then became my lover, and is now my forever partner, hopefully…
“Because you don’t ever have to sing alone again. I’m here now. You sing, I sing – remember?”
The End
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