Hey! I hope you are all doing alright. It’s getting cold.
Per usual, I am issuing a content warning for the same usual stuff: death, depression, etc.
I played a few songs at the student bar a couple nights ago. The bar was lit with strange purple lights and was twice as long as it was wide. Before my set I loitered around the bar looking for something to sip on. Eventually I ordered a Moscow Mule because I didn’t know what it would taste like. I took a seat next to a handsome French guy (I could tell by the black hair and somewhat separated teeth). He was leaning on crutches, so I asked him why. He said he was partying and he fell on his knee and shattered his patella. I reacted with a sour “ouch” and a laugh and he laughed. We talked and I fell in love because that’s what I do when an attractive straight man treats me like a normal person. His smile made me beam. I asked him questions to keep his attention. He told me about his week and how he was planning to go to some wild party an hour out of the city. I told him he should probably just lay low given he couldn’t walk, but he insisted that the party would be too fun to miss. He was maybe four beers deep when he told me he was going to rent a car to get to the party. I told him how bad of an idea that was and he said I’m right and we had a moment where I think he realized I care about him more than just a passing stranger would. He said he wanted to live in the French countryside. I told him he’d need knees for that.
When I took the stage for my set, after the first song I said into the mic something along the lines of, “I met a guy tonight. He broke his knee and is on crutches. I hope you feel better soon, man. Also, I am deeply, deeply attracted to you.” I can do anything so long as people are watching. My crippled French friend was nowhere to be found. A few days later he told me he has the flu and he’s straight.
The next night, Friday night, I was exhausted so I went over to a friend’s house and played charades in their hot apartment with some people I love in a way that I am not sure they reciprocate. These people are healing after the recent death. They smile and laugh into their glasses of cheap red wine and shitty beer, but they also cry and cry and cry.
I came home from charades at 2am. I could barely even get through the door to my apartment. Our hallway was filled with strangers smoking cigarettes from the neighbors’ party below. When I made it into my apartment, my roommate and our friends followed quickly behind. A few of my friends, high on stimulants and drunk, walked in and hugged me and asked where I’d been and I told them and they told me how high and drunk they were and I laughed but I did not care because I only noticed one man who I had met before but never had the pleasure of actually talking with. His name was not Will, but we will call him that.
Will was slender in a way I could never be. He wore a black t-shirt with some innocuous edgy graphic interspersed with small metal rhinestones. I was in only my underwear as I was planning to take a shower. When he walked in we made eye contact and we both smiled. I took an uncharacteristically fast shower in hopes of talking to Will. His hair fell over his eyes in loose brown curls, blond in the right light. I sat on the couch next to him as he played blues riffs on my acoustic guitar. Eventually, Will handed me the guitar and I decided to sing for him. He watched my hands as I played song after song. I sang beautifully that night. My voice felt just perfect. When his friends said they were leaving and taking him with them, he asked to stay for a couple more songs. I played to my captive audience and fell in love because that’s what I do when a beautiful straight man says I have a lovely singing voice.
The next night, Saturday night, Will invited me out to some fashion event with him. I skipped my friend’s birthday party hoping Will liked me the way I liked him. He texted me a heart! He said he had a great time last night! This is it. Finally. We showed up at the venue and immediately I felt out of place. The gallery was all white and lit with beaming white overheads, ruining what little vibe was left in the room. The room itself was populated by possibly the most insufferable crowd on earth: artsy students. They wore platform shoes, lacy tops, odd-fitting jeans, and clothes cropped in strange places. The boys looked like poorly dressed girls and the girls looked like well dressed boys. Will was drunk or high or tired or something by the time we got to the event and the bright white lights didn’t help. He didn’t seem very interested in spending any one-on-one time with me, nonetheless kissing me.
Across the room, I saw a man with odd glasses. He was wearing a long-sleeve, brandless, red polo shirt and green pants. He was my height and had a friendly and handsome face. His name was not Noah, but we will call him Noah. I walked up beside Noah and asked him what he thought of the art. He said something vaguely positive about the images in front of us and I asked, “do you know who I am?” He paused for a second, the perfect amount of time for me to read the artist’s full name on the little information card. He said no and I said, “I am [insert artist name]”. At first he believed me, but quickly he saw the joke. The point wasn’t for him to believe me, it was for him to know that I exist. I told him my name and he told me his and we shook hands. I asked him about everything: where he’s from, his family, what he studies, what he wants to do in life, who he reads. We chatted about Hemingway and Dostoevsky and Celine in a way that made me seem smart and he smiled and laughed and I fell in love because that’s what I do when a handsome and sweet straight man laughs at my jokes. I gave him my number, but never got his. I check my phone every few minutes to see if he’s texted me.
In between the French guy with the broken knee, Will, and Noah were countless glances, dozens of library boys, cafe boys, waiters, images, forms, shadows of boys I wanted to love me the way I wanted to love them. In between every boy were endless boys who didn’t maintain eye contact, boys who passed me on the sidewalk.
A few years ago, I saw a mouse running in circles. There was an old man watching and I asked him what the mouse was doing. He said the mouse had been running in circles all day. He said he tried to stop it, but the mouse would only speed up. He said the mouse would run in circles until it died. I watched the mouse run in circles for a few minutes. At first it was funny just for the absurdity. I looked up “why do mice run in circles?” and Google told me it’s because they have a brain parasite, an infection, or some sort of neurological condition. The mouse running in circles very quickly became less funny and more desperate. I had to walk away.
If you can’t tell, I am the mouse.
Will told me he is straight and I am sure Noah is too. I should be used to this by now, but every time it happens it hurts more. The problem is that I don’t know what to change. I can’t not be gay, I know that much. I tried to change my “type” but that didn’t work either. I need to change the way I love, but I can’t. I connect immediately with people because I create a full version of them in my head when we first meet. I imagine us as old friends long before that is a possibility.
I layed in bed after the fashion event feeling destroyed. How do I live in a world that was not made for me? Why is he straight? Why am I gay? Imagine Romeo and Juliet, but Juliet doesn’t exist and we just watch Romeo kill himself.
Every day I wake up and hate who I am. This is true and I wish it wasn’t. I was talking to my brother recently when I said, “If I have kids someday, I hope to god they are straight. I wouldn’t wish this upon my worst enemies.” I meant what I said. My brother responded by saying that many gay people are doing just fine and I think that made me feel worse because that means that I am the problem.
I woke up this morning and Googled, “list of vices” just to see if I had any left to try.
The days are getting awfully short. The nights are freezing and I’m hardly sleeping, as my bedroom seems intent on letting in 100% of the cold air. I think often about my heart. I want to be new. My heart is in pieces. I threw the pieces into the wind and they blew back into my eyes.
I can’t change other people and I can’t change the world. I am so scared of being alone forever. I see straight couples and I feel envy. It must be so easy. My straight friends say, “I am so glad I’m not gay,”, as if that is supposed to make me feel better.
I love immediately because that is the only love I am comfortable expressing: love without reciprocation. If I was a magnet, I’d not. Sometimes, the only thing that keeps me going is that I know that one day I’ll write a book and someone will relate to it.