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I’d never gotten that whole thing about “finding the statue inside of the marble” or whatever the fuck. It seemed kinda stupid. The rock is just the way to get to the picture in your head.
Not this hunk of marble.
I saw it and I ran my hands over it and I felt it. I felt something in it that needed to come out. I don’t know what it is. I’m standing in front of it right now and I still don’t know what it is.
I have no idea what I’m supposed to be carving into this thing. I just know it’s supposed to be something. Something important, maybe? Or something beautiful.
I toss my hat and pull my suspenders off my shoulders and pop my first two buttons.
What are you? I think and slide my hands over the rock. It’s cool. I almost shiver.
Do I just start wherever? Maybe.
I roll up my sleeves and pick up my hammer and chisel. I’ll just start wherever. The rock will tell me where to go.
-
I’m two hours in and I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’m just fucking chipping away aimlessly. I squint at the rock at bite my sandwich. Something about it pisses me off endlessly.
I grab a loose chunk and throw it at the hunk of marble. It retains an air of a haughty “fuck you.” I flip it off. Prick. I hate it.
Oh , it’s a person.
I have to start with their hands.
-
I finish late. It’s dark. I skipped supper. I never skip supper.
There’s a vague start to an outline of an arm. It’s held up. I wonder if he’s waving. Maybe he’s waiting for another hand.
He’s a he.
He .
I fall asleep with my jacket bunched under my head and amidst rubble.
-
Hot. Hot like cold. Hot like...hot, like before, like the core.
Heavy. Heavy like above. Heavy like not, like...like the heaviest. Heavy not above, but in front like a push.
Velvet like falling dirt, like rolling rain, like the shift of the earth. Velvet spread out. Velvet at the ends of the stems of the sun, spread out, touching like—
Cold. Cold like soil in the dark, like—
A wound. A wound like the grass removed. A wound against the sky, opened wide.
-
Pricks and knicks like shivers. Shivers like earthquakes. Earthquakes like before. Not like before, like more.
Every wound like a crater. Like when the sky cracked the earth. Each crater not a wound but a door.
An unwelcome guest at the door. A guest I’ve been waiting for. ( I , what is I ?)
Do not come through my door , but like Poseidon’s rose in the wake of spring and sea breeze I reach—
-
Heaven calls me high. I reach all night.
-
I’ve been working for a week. He’s definitely a he. He feels like a he.
He’s a prick.
How a rock is managing to annoy me I have no idea. Sometimes I just want to hit him with my hammer for no reason. Push him over. Break off one of these fingers I’ve been working so painstakingly on.
I’m going about this backwards. I should be getting the basic form out, not spending all of my time on the delicate lines in his palm before I’ve done anything else. I’ve not even done much beyond his wrist. I just need to finish his hand.
Penny had visited this week and she pointed out how stupidly I was going about this. I couldn’t explain it. This is just how he wants to be made. Brought out.
He’s fucking bossy.
I blow a little dust off of his thumbnail, my mouth almost touching the finger. He has beautiful hands. I know I made it but it feels like it was someone else. Something else. I dunno.
His fingers are long and bony. His hand held up and open like it's waiting for fingers to intertwine with his. I bring up my hand and trace my finger up along the side of his. My breath stutters and I lean forward to rest the side of my head against the rough stone as I continue to trace his hand.
I end up with my hand wrapped around his wrist and my thumb pressing into the bottom of his palm. I can almost imagine being able to press and for the skin to give. But he’s stone.
The rest of me is pressed up against the chilled marble. As close as I can get.
I wonder when I’ll learn his name.
-
Time was only a myth until this.
Hailstorm like fallen cosmos, like sinking in the ocean, like ocean floor and creatures deep. Deep like ocean sinking and above rising and creatures deep, shifting and being.
Hailstorm of me. Of terra becoming. Terra of me.
I am only known cold because the ice rock of the storm is hot. I am not ice but I melt smooth. I’m dripping free.
Spider between my bones, knit my flesh. Spider with birds feather scribing story into my—
Hand. Not a flower reaching, but a hand aching to hold. Hand ancient and old and—
Empty, unlike the careful sigh against me. Unlike—
Time. It comes in breaths. I am the mountain’s side. The sun is a pulse. It leans into—
Soft, I give.
-
I skipped the rest of his arm and went right to his head. I’m not even sure how I know where to put these body parts; I just do.
I’m behind him right now, picking away at the back of his head. I put down my tools just for a moment and run my hand down like I could comb my fingers through his hair. I feel all of the bumps and harsh edges. I’ll smooth them all out, for you.
My hand keeps traveling. This will be his back. Here will be his spine.
My knuckles trail back up. Here will be his shoulder. Down, down along his arm again. I’m holding his wrist. I always go back to his wrist. I’m breathing heavily. My forehead is resting where the base of his skull will be.
I nose my way up to the side of his head and press my cheek there. I’m on my toes.
His ear is next.
-
I didn’t know I was buried before, but the crown of my skull shakes free and I wonder if this what the wind has always meant by breathe.
Like moss and weeds and sprouts I’m breaking through. Now that I have a head I know what it is. I know my hand.
I know the heat and the rough catch of flesh like river slipping down the whole of me.
Like wild salmon tripping upstream, mouth open wide for the herring, for the green grasshopper—
I remember something for the first time: summer sweet. It is this wild salmon baked in the sun, mouth open wide, pressed heavy on my wrist. Against the vein.
What is this boulder like fire on the back of my neck? (I have a neck to hold my head) (I have a head)
Do boulders breathe? Breathe like a bull behind red, red like blood, blood like sun, like pulse—
Pulse in my wrist.
-
I’m wiping my hands on a cloth and Penny is popping grapes into her mouth.
“So does he have a name yet?”
I throw down the towel and pick up an apple wedge. “Nope.”
“Any ideas yet?”
The apple makes a satisfying crunch and I answer with my mouth full, “Nope.”
“Hmm... Tyrannus.”
“Jesus, Penny.”
“What? It’s snooty. You said he was bossy.”
“He’s bossy, not a villain in a kid’s book.”
“Pshaw. How about Bill?”
“Ha! How about ‘Pain in my rump’?”
Penny laughs. I pick up another apple slice.
-
It’s hours after. Penny’s long gone. I’ve turned on my lamp. I’m still working.
His ear is so delicate I have to be careful. Gently I blow a little dust from inside of it. My hand goes to his. My fingers on his palm, my palm on his wrist. I bring my other hand behind his head— to cradle it. Cradle him.
I look at the empty face.
What’s your name?
Ah, yes.
I lean forward, on my tip toes, until my lips could almost touch the shell of his ear.
“ Basil, ” I whisper.
Basil is your name.
-
Oh, when my skull became a cave. A cave like at the edge of the ocean, but then a damp whistle of wind and I—
My skull is not a cave, I am gifted a conch. I am not beside crashing waves, but hold them within my small shell.
Shells hold the ocean like caves hold echoes, like the caving of my shell carries the glittering surface of Your sound.
I thought I was coming to the surface of the earth. I thought I was riverbed and flora and food for fish.
I thought you were sun sinking in. I thought you were wind and plates shifting and heaven high.
You are…
The ocean in my ear.
I hold your sound in each carefully hollowed grotto, the same way you cradle my head like tipping ship.
“Basil,” I see India rippling under the heatwave of an orange setting sun. I wonder when we’ve been.
-
I talk to him now. When I work. When I eat.
Sometimes, and I’d never admit this to anyone, I wrap my arms around his neck (I’ve been working on his neck and shoulders recently), and I look at his blank face and tell him anything and everything.
I’ve told him about stars and cows and paintings and a girl’s soft looking dress at a cafe.
I told him how I have no folks but Penny is my family so it’s okay.
I come in and tell him about the newest episode of The Lone Ranger . I’d bring in a radio so he could listen too if I could, but it’s too big.
Sometimes, very quietly, I’ll sing to him. I like singing Daisy Bell especially. I think he likes that one too. Maybe. Look at me, wondering if a rock likes a song. I’m going crazy.
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I’m half crazy, all for the love of you .
I’d imagine a rock would like flowers. Flowers, dirt, rocks. It makes sense.
I have my arms wrapped around his neck again, practically hanging off of him, tools forgotten. I look at where his eyes would be and my heart skips a beat. Instead, I look down at his lips. Where his lips should be.
I talk so much, but he can’t talk back.
“It’s time to give you lips,” I tell him. My breath puffs against his face.
-
When a voice enters your head is it routine that it never leaves? Are we in the days before deep winter? You move about like a fat brown squirrel stuck in a brush, hiding treasures and forgetting.
Your sound is my sea more than ever. Pulled far (so far I can’t see it swelling) and then dropping overhead (I never see it coming, never know from what direction).
And then there are these: pink sands, technicolor sea glass and waves that border less on water and more on milky foam.
It’s when you press close and quiet down, like the space around us is forbidden your voice, but I am allowed.
You’re like a young boy who’s learned something new when you tell me of stars and cattle and colored pictures and soft, soft dresses.
I want to tell you of the constellations that connect the stars, how it feels under the weight of a calf standing for the first time. I want to tell you of the stain of berries beneath the feet of jolly women who make wine, how their prints are stories like your paintings, how their dresses are worn soft from days under the sun and work.
You tell me things you want to share; I want to tell you that you share your sound like the ocean. The ocean who always returns with something new.
Returns with something new like a raven on a wire. You crow at me and it is not like the goldfinches in the trees. You cannot sing lovely-like, but still you sing: I’m half crazy all for the love of you .
I am half crazy after hearing you croon.
I wonder if the soft dress belongs to a girl named Daisy and what kind of crazy she’s made you.
-
A phenomenon has occurred: I’ve stopped heating from your touch alone, now I heat from the inside (but only when you’re close).
It is now where I wonder if you feel my heat like soapstone over a fire, the meat of a fresh hunt slabbed over my edges salted and curling as they cook.
You are all over me. I feel your weight like a bear at the top of a slim tree.
Lips. Lips whispering at me that you will give me my own.
-
When I thought of lips I only noticed the feel of yours and how they remind me of walking through fields of sunflowers. How the petals feel against bare shoulder skin. How when you whisper close, you are sunflower skin.
It must be the nature in me, or the nature in you, because you brush my mouth open in bloom.
-
I feel you heavy at the base of me. Mountain lion, you curl and sleep.
I’ve been thinking all your counted breaths how you want me to tell you things.
How badly I want to tell you that you can’t sing.
It must be the nature in you given to me: the sound of you inside of me finally has a place to leave.
I sing to you long forgotten whistles of birds extinct. I hum to you the song of a dying star and the way it is reborn.
-
So, the lips were a mistake.
Not as in I messed them up; no, they’re perfect. I couldn’t mess up this statue if I tried.
No, the lips were a mistake because they’re too perfect. I can’t hold onto his neck and talk to him anymore or I stop and stare at them.
I trace them with my thumb and my breath catches. I want to kiss them but they’re made of stone. And stone can’t say yes. Stone can’t say no.
Why in God’s name I worry about a rock’s permission is beyond me.
I’ve been working on his kneecaps— just his kneecaps, not the rest of his legs, mind. Partially because if I’m crouched down at his knees I can’t see his lips. Partially because I think he deserves to be able to crouch down too. Maybe someday he’ll crouch down and kiss me with those lips.
I’m going insane.
And then there’s the dreams.
Occasionally, I’ll fall asleep huddled at his base. Sometimes it’s exhaustion. Sometimes I just don’t want to leave him to go home.
Only when I stay the night do I have dreams of him. He sings. He tells me about the dark earth. He tells me I can’t sing. (Prick) Sometimes in these dreams I reach up and out for his hand, but he can’t reach down to take it, and we both give up.
Maybe that’s why I’m working on his knees. Maybe it’s selfish. Maybe I just want him to take my hand in my dreams.
I gently brush off his right knee. The fronts and backs of them are done on both sides. I stand up and look back at his face.
“Well, Baz—“ I call him Baz for short nowadays— “There’s your knees. All finished.”
I look at his face, unfinished and rough except for his chin and mouth. Just a little, I’ll allow myself just a little.
I trail my hands gently, gingerly up his shoulders until my arms are wrapped around his neck. I haven’t done this in a little while. I press my body up a little closer against his than usual.
Just this much. I’ll give myself just this much.
I lean my forehead against his and when I speak my lips tickle the smooth stone of his. “I hope you like them.”
I trail my nails up and down the back of his head. It’s still rough. I haven’t worked on it yet.
Maybe if he wasn’t made of stone he could wrap his arms around me. Maybe then I could wrap my arms around his waist instead.
“Basil…” I whisper against his lips. “I want to give you a gift.”
How do you give a rock a gift?
-
His other hand is holding a daisy by the bottom of the bud. As if his lover just gave it to him. His other hand held up, waiting for this imaginary lover to twine their fingers with his. To hold his hand. I’m not The Lover so I never do. I only hold his wrist.
When I finish the hand with the daisy I let myself one kiss: just to the back of his hand.
I could kiss every knuckle and fingertip, but I just allow myself the one kiss. I hope he likes his gift, even though it wasn’t really a lover that gave it to him.
-
Do you know the gods are always watching us? They punish men for crimes they created men to commit. I have felt the bones of past lives buried above me, premature in rest. A gift is rare and yet—
-
Your lips or my own, what is the difference? Your flesh around my stone, what, what is the difference? To long for what’s already always been my own.
To long is to stretch is to bend until you will your muscle to snap and come anew.
It is after one of the many of thousands of hot breaths you sputter when my own muscle breaks.
(I’ve begun counting to measure the space between when you leave and return; it’s like standing in the wet heat and trying to predict the next coming of cool breeze) (You have no pattern, you make no sense)
Lava moves as quick as wild horses in a rushing river. It’s when your lips—
-
You uncover me in pieces I don’t expect. (I wonder what should I expect. I came from the ground; I lived there for centuries. I knew stories of the sun but never thought to see it and yet.) (I don’t see anything.) (I see the scorching sun.)
I feel the tapping of your feet through the ground that I am. When you huff and I feel you far, I am reminded of a boar shaking its head. The only songs I know are the ones the wind whistles through trees and yet when you sing I know it’s too quickly and offbeat.
You are impatient. You uncover me slow.
I have been born without time and yet. I am impatient. I want to unravel in ribbons right now.
Have you ever known a lion who’s been nuzzled too long? They nip. That’s how I feel you in the space between me.
Because you are a lion and I am what I am, I stop telling you where to go. I don’t think I am ready to see it yet.
-
When a terrible storm begins to build all the animals on earth fall quiet. You have gone quiet for too long and yet there are birds in the sky that sing.
You are working at the roots of me. No, not the roots but somewhere in the middle where they connect me. I think I understand, but I can only sing when you sleep. When you leave.
Your voice is mostly gone now, but still you have no way of hearing me. Sometimes you say ‘Baz’ and I hate it because it feels like falling rain. Feels like small insects skittering over me and wet earth laying down into me.
You spend more time, here, asleep beneath me. More time on details that don’t matter (How do I know this isn’t like you? I just know it isn’t like you) and still you touch me less. Sometimes you will tell me things you know about the world that I know to be wrong, but you haven’t for a while.
I know I said I wouldn’t tell you where to go, but only because you were supposed to show me.
-
Things change when you finish my knees. I know now that you were building me knees because I feel the knobs of your own bump into mine when finally you stand and wrap around me.
When you touch me, I know things.
“I want to give you a gift.”
I did not know this.
-
A gift is a rare thing. What have I done for the gods to favor me this? I have done nothing. I have hidden inside the earth.
You twine a daisy into my fingers. It’s yellow. I know because I have been covered in them and because the earth is covered in many lovely yellow things and they all feel the same.
And then comes the gift: the yellow petals of your lips against my hand. Yellow. All over. It is springtime inside of me. Do you see the yellow blooming out of me? Daisies and marigold and daffodil and yarrow between my cracks, spreading out.
It is the season of wild horses flouncing with the push of a rushing river.
-
By the time you fall asleep I am covered in it. Yellow. Spring. Dancing horses inside of me.
For the first time my surface breaks. My stone is bone and your kiss is my flesh and muscle and blood.
I have one desire and I pursue it. I live in the dark. I cannot see. Still, I know where you sleep beneath me. I bend like the weep of a willow tree.
It’s painful to move for the first time. (I think I understand the cries of newborns and the stumble of foals. Still, I have one desire and I must pursue it.)
(I can’t.)
(I only have knees and hands and lips. My lips can’t reach.)
Maybe it’s because you’ve touched me so often that I know where to go. Flesh against flesh is so different than stone.
Yellow. Spring. I hear the horses, they are loud.
My fingers find yours. The daisy was not your gift, but it’s the only one I can reach to give back.
-
I wake up with a daisy in my hand and it’s blue.
I feel like I should be surprised. Shocked, scared, anything else, really. Anything other than what I am.
I swallow the lump in my throat and look up at him.
I guess he didn’t like my gift.
I don’t work on Baz that day.
-
I come in the next day and my eyes aren’t red and my stomach is full and I feel fine.
I finish his chest and stomach in the next two weeks.
-
I don’t press myself against him anymore.
He doesn’t want me to.
I touch his face, now, though. I give myself this. It’s not too much. Surely.
Surely.
“It’s time to give you a face, Basil.”
-
He’s smirking of course he’s smirking of course he’d be smirking I hate him I really do I hate him.
It’s night, and his face is finished except for his eyes. I’m scared of his eyes. What I’ll see there when they appear. What he’ll see.
I wipe my hands off. I turn off the lamp.
All that’s left is me, moonlight, and him.
Maybe I’m brave because it’s dark. Or because I’m tired. Or because I’m stupid.
Probably the last one.
I know I shouldn’t.
It’s just. Last night, I thought I felt someone pet my hair. And whisper…
Well.
And whisper.
To me.
I press up against him and I don’t feel guilty.
I wrap my arms around his neck and I stroke his head and my eyes roll over his face.
His eyebrows (one’s cocked up at me), his nose (it’s just a little too high), his lips (his lips).
I look at where his eyes would be and I lose my breath.
I press up closer. I’m not sure I do it on purpose.
My hand goes down his unfinished hair. Down his almost finished neck. My finger dips into the hollow at his collarbone. My forehead is pressed to his.
I’m panting. Since when am I panting?
My hand goes further down. Why did I make his nipples erect? I don’t even remember thinking about it. I slide my thumb over it once. Twice.
My pants are tight. Fuck.
My hands slide down to his stomach.
I press closer and feel marble through my pants.
Am I doing this? I can’t do this. I can’t can’t can’t do this.
He’s just a statue, Simon .
No, he’s not he’s—
He’s—
“Baz.”
I look at where his eyes will be and I groan.
Baz, Baz, Baz, Baz.
My hand goes down to my pants and I decide to stop thinking.
I’d worship him. I’d make sure he knows how beautiful he is. I’d talk to him. And we’d laugh and I’d—
I’d kiss him and I—
My free hand comes up to wrap around his wrist.
And I’d be the lover he’s waiting for and—
My face is pressed to his and our noses are pressed together and I’m panting onto his mouth. His smile.
He’d laugh and I—
The voice from my dreams would—
He’d say my name.
That sends me over and I stick my face between his neck and his shoulder and I’m embarrassed of how good it is.
Everything with Baz would be good.
If he.
If I.
I look down at his lips.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
I kiss his cheek.
“I’m sorry.”
-
I clean us up and I know I should go home.
But I can’t.
I can’t leave.
I curl up at where his feet will be and pray for just one good dream.
I can’t do this again.
It’s time to give him eyes.
-
That morning I felt you come back to the waking world. I felt you leave ours.
Maybe yellow wasn’t for you.
-
I ache. Ache like a wolf singing its song without a moon, like a whale whose echo gets lost in the blue. Like plums bruised. Like shotguns that ring and deer that bleed.
It comes from the stomach you’ve given me.
You come, you go, you never press close. There is an endless winter between us. Do you know in the snow some creatures go to sleep? Do you know that sometimes they never wake up?
-
Brain on fire. A man punches his fist through a wall, the wall breaks his fist, he punches it again. His hand shatters.
I wish my hand were a fist.
You gave me a kiss. A gift is a rare thing. You are my flesh and muscle and blood. A kiss. I wish I were a fist.
That’s how I would kiss you. Would you look at me then?
Sometimes men eat other men.
-
A fist can only be clenched for so long. By the time your fingers find my face and you tell me you’ll give me my own, I ache.
Ache like knees on the ground for god. I am desperate for this. Desperate like hands raised to the sky, ‘take me anywhere but here’.
Can you feel me leaning in?
-
That night, because I am weak and you have finally decided to sleep near me again, I bend beside you.
Because you are yellow and it never left me, I know where to find the mess of your hair. It’s not very soft and feels like grease. I keep my hand there until I can’t, until you stir.
Over and over I ask you to come back to me, to forgive me, to please understand.
-
This may be the one time you’ve listened to me. Does it show that I’m pleased? I think so.
You’ve been muttering since you’ve woken. You haven’t stopped touching my face. The one that you give me.
How do you see me? The way that I am. Like sliced bitter lemon, you curve the corner of my mouth.
“You deserve a stupid nose,” you say when you shape it, but then you trace your thumb over it again and again. I see through you, you know it. You place my eyebrow in a way that reminds you so.
-
I don’t understand that I’m smelling you until I do. I taste it in my mouth. You are a campfire with friends. A candle freshly blown out. Popcorn spilling out on a nervous first date when both hands reach for the bag.
I understand why some men eat other men.
-
Winter has died and you brought everything back to life. I still wish I were a fist. (Though I don’t know what I’d do with it. Maybe I just want to fist your hair, pull on it.)
You took your time hollowing me out, making me ache, and now this .
Oh heavens, do I ache . You are as close as you’ve ever been. I don’t know why. I don’t mind.
I can’t even see you but I wish I could look away. You are looking directly at me. It is too much. It is not enough.
Your limbs locked around me, all of you trying to climb inside of me, and you won’t stop staring. You’re burning holes through my skull. You’re making me look back.
Your fingertips at my empty head (full of your ragged breath) touch like lightning in the middle of a dry wood. I feel it down to the toes I don’t have. They trail, your fingers, around my throat (burning like the woods). They tremble and trip across my collarbone (lightning bounces, it leaves holes).
My own hand spread open and far, open and empty, open and waiting and aching like I am for you.
Your forehead thumps mine, your whole body crashes with it. Your forehead connected to mine and I know everything now. Your body slumped (this is defeat), heavier than the sun and moon and every star in the sky. I used to hold the entire world and all the broken hearts in it on top of me; I can hold you.
Do you know that when you pant, voice follows? Wet breath and ghosted groans, rain to my dead yellow flowers. You are walking around inside of me, you must know.
When winter dies and the wild wakes up everything hunts, everything ma—
Your thumb at the knobs of my chest tune to an eagle in the sky, spreading its wings wide. Spreading wide, like my aching hands, like holes left, like my chest, like my legs want to.
Do you feel the hunger in my gut? When you touch it, it tries to open up and swallow you in. I want you inside. I feel yours. Hunger. Lower than your gut. Cutting harder than any chisel into my hip.
When winter dies and the wild wakes up everything hunts, everything makes until it shakes.
“Baz,” it’s throaty and gaping and—
For all the gifts the gods give this one is a trick, stop looking at me .
Your knuckles brush my groin and though nothing is there, everything else is everywhere. They keep knocking against me, your knuckles, like a hot open mouth. You’re touching yourself and you’re loud.
This is why I wish I had a fist. For you to use.
You’re just short of what I want when you grab at my wrist instead of my hand. It’s open for you . All of me is open for you . Can you feel my heart inside of my wrist? It’s almost as loud as you. Certainly just as clumsy.
Your nose is not stupid like mine, I know because they’re hugging. Your breath is sweeter than honeycombed wine and when it expires inside my mouth I try to swallow it, try to push my own back out.
Tell me, Simon, have you ever heard a dove cry?
I hear them now, white wings flapping sweet. Doves are just angels when they sing. You’re coming undone against me.
My neck is a cradle for your head when it ends. I don’t want to be a cradle, I want to be a cage and lock this moment inside of me. You pull away.
“I’m sorry,” it’s enough to send me screaming. If I could.
Your lips quiver at my cheek.
“I’m sorry,” it’s enough to make me mean.
-
Except I can’t be when you’ve chosen to stay close. Your body is as soft and laden as it’s ever been as you doze on the ground. The earth tells me these things.
I can only hover. My hands flex and follow over every inch of you, not touching but close enough to feel the lift of breath in your chest when I reach it.
Maybe just one finger. Just one to trace the stories in your palm. I almost jerk away when your fingers close around mine. You stay asleep.
When you dream, I hope it’s of me. Send your thoughts to sky and let me see.
-
His first eye blinks into existence and I realize I’m screwed.
-
His second eye winks into the world and I realize I’m doomed.
-
I thought he was bad before.
That was nothing.
I should’ve never given him eyes. He wasn’t bossy for awhile. I did whatever I wanted.
Not now. Now he’s ten times bossier than he ever was before. I hate it.
I gave him eyes so I wouldn’t—
Wouldn’t. Again.
It didn’t work.
If anything I want to do it even more than I did before. I want him to watch me. I—
I haven’t done it again.
I won’t.
I look at his eyes, half-lidded, staring me down.
Please, not that.
“ Oh yes,” he seems to say. “ That. ”
I hate him so much.
-
Fuck Baz’s eyes. I hate his stupid eyes. I should’ve carved on a fucking blindfold.
I throw down my tools and walk away with my hands on my hips. I take deep breaths. Imagine little old ladies in their skippies. Dead puppies. Old men’s too-long toenails.
I look back at Baz.
“ Flustered? ” He seems to say.
“I hate your guts,” I tell him. “Your shitty, awful rock guts.”
If marble could laugh he’d be laughing. I hate him.
It’s just a penis, Simon. You’ve carved tons of penises. You’ve drawn even more penises than you’ve carved!
I’ve never tasted one though.
Never felt the skin and heat of one on my tongue—
I groan and I pull my hair and look back at him again.
“You’re a bastard and I hate you. Why can’t you just be smooth down there. Like a... like a bug or something.”
I pause. I look at him. He looks at me.
“I know bugs have pricks! It’s just that I don’t have to see them!”
He looks at me. I look at him.
“I could push you over and break your shitty face,” we both know I would never. “What’s a statue need a dick for, anyway? Need to have a wank in the night after I go home?”
I picture Baz wanking. Panting, moaning, sighing.
I’d press him against the wall and make him keep going as I sucked his fingers. Maybe that would wipe that gorgeous smirk off his f—
“Cheese and crackers , Baz I hate you.”
I scrub my hands over my face and make it hurt. I need a bucket of water dumped on me like a cat in heat.
“You’re the worst I hope—“
I don’t know what I hope. I’m tired. I feel like a dirty old man over a statue.
I sigh. I run my hand through my hair. I pick up my tools. I walk back over.
“I should give you a micropenis. Make it look like a scab.”
(I don’t.)
-
It’s dark again.
I’m chest to chest with him again.
Cause it’s dark, I suppose. I get braver when it’s not daylight.
I thought I wouldn’t do this after he could see me.
Now he’s watching me. He’s seeing me.
Don’t look away don’t look away.
“Baz,” I say, and my hand trickles down to the one where I’d given him the flower. I run my fingers up and down where I’d kissed him.
I kiss his cheek again. And this time I don’t say sorry.
But I do think it.
So I go home that night.
-
You’re blowing dust from my eye. I have an eye. I’ve never seen anything before, I’ve only felt things in the way that everything in the world is connected.
I know that what you’ve given me is an eye, because when you pull back I’m looking directly into yours. I know that they are what you see with because they reveal you. Your pupils dilate.
Tiny black holes sucking me in, surrounded by dull blue. Nothing like the sky or ocean or berries of June. But they are you.
-
I see with two eyes, just like you. I see—
That you won’t look at me. I mean you do, but I can tell you don’t want to. Have you ever looked at yourself? You’re the most childish and belligerent anomaly.
You stomp around with an ugly twisted scowl. You glare, like you wonder what I’m trying to trick you into. You stick all of your fingers into your rust twisted hair and pull, pull like you’re trying to split your head open and get something out.
Rust, that’s a good way to describe you. You’ve got these clusters of spots all over you, like where rain has started to fade you. Grey circles under your eyes. Bandages around your hands from long days wrapped around tools. Your fingers bumped and calloused. Nails bitten and jagged.
You kick at things while you think with your back turned to me. Turn around pistol whip quick and bore into me, jerk your shoulders up as if to ask ‘what’.
Under the sunlight, yes, you look unpleasant to the touch and worn thin, just like rust.
And yet my eyes follow you everywhere. And yet all I want is for your sandpaper parts to scuff me up.
The bulk of your thighs bulges against your trousers when you squat and squint up at me.
If you’ve given me pupils, they’re blown. I’m blowing over. You’re pushing without touching.
-
Except now when you do touch your hands tremble. Is it because you’re making me more like you? In the place where your knuckles kept brushing me, where doves flickered and cried.
You keep stopping and smacking your hand on the ground. Looking away while you’re working (this is a terrible idea, you might maim me).
(How would you feel if I had sharp tools at your prick and just whacked at it like a drug induced chimpanzee?)
That seems to do you in. You throw your tools down (so loud) and pace across the room.
You hate my “shitty, awful rock guts”. Right. I’m a rock. You’re pissy at a rock. Which makes you delusional.
Gods the noises you make, stupid and lovely. I wish you would stop pulling at your hair. It makes me want to bend your neck back, break it, kiss it, twist it until you turn to stone with me—
What do you mean ‘smooth like a bug’? Do you have no concept of insect anatomy? Well I guess you wouldn’t know more than me, I don’t know why I’d expect you to.
You’re like a steam engine with all those clouds of hot air billowing out of your head. You stare at me, I stare at you.
(Not that I have a choice not to.) (Not that I would choose anything else because me watching you is visibly driving you mad.) (Which I like. A lot.)
I’m not sure what a ‘wank’ is, but if it’s displeasing to you then, yes, that’s what I’d like a dick to be able to do.
Your face is all ruddy in these incohesive splotches. Your nostrils are flared, shoulders bunched tight like you’re coiled and ready to hit me. I want you to, just so you’ll break your hand and feel stupid.
Instead you scrape your hands up and down your face, push your palms into your eyes. Pull at your hair. It sticks out in all directions. You look an absolute disaster. A gorgeous fucking mess.
-
You’re back on your knees in front of me. You’ve threatened to leave me shrunken, but you don’t.
You craft me lovingly. Like you’ve given yourself a prize to hold.
Your face stays red. You keep sneaking frowns at me.
I like you on your knees.
-
You look different in the dark. You are different in the dark. I have been the night, so I know what that feels like.
Though it’s just been us all day, I feel more alone with you now.
When you touch me you don’t tremble. Your fingers walk across mine. I wish you’d just hold my hand. You carved it to hold.
Simon, you look like you were made for it when you kiss. Stubby lashes lowered, eyebrows pinched, giving it all your focus.
It’s just my cheek, but I feel the aftershocks at the edges of my lips.
-
I haven’t given much thought to myself since you’ve been here all day, but now you’ve left me alone in the dark.
I watch my hands when they move. Link them together and think of you. Touch my stomach and my chest and my nose and everywhere that you do.
I’ve always known that life is beautiful and even though I’ve been surrounded by it for a time long before you, I never felt apart of it. Until now. I’m just beginning to—
Until I catch sight of myself in a mirror across the room. I am unfinished, cold stone. I’m nothing real.
I don’t belong with you.
-
I have the top half of his back done. I had to escape his face for a little while before I went mad.
I already am mad but, y’know. More mad, I guess.
It’s summer now. It’s bloody hot. I wipe my sleeve across my forehead before laying my face on Baz’s shoulder. He’s so cool. I breathe in. And out.
I’m still so goddamn hot. I have pit stains through my under shirt. I take my button down off and toss it with my face still on his shoulder. Then I unbutton the shirt part of my underwear and peel it off so it hangs at my waist.
I press myself up to Baz’s back. My hands are around his waist. I’m panting.
I’m only doing this to cool down.
-
Who needs trousers? I’m so hot I’m dying. I’m on fire. I hate everything. Especially Baz. He hasn’t done anything or made me feel stupid but I hate him most on principle.
He’s actually been quiet all afternoon. Or maybe my already delusional brain is just overheated. That’s possible.
I’m staring at a pitcher of water and wondering if I should dump it on myself.
I shouldn’t.
I shouldn’t.
I walk away.
I stare at it over Baz’s shoulder.
I chip away at Baz’s butt.
I stare at Baz’s butt.
I run over and dump the pitcher on my head.
“Ohhhh my god that’s so much better.”
I look at Baz.
“What?”
I feel like my question wasn’t deemed worthy of response.
I roll my eyes and get back to work.
-
I don’t want to go home. The cement floor in here is so cool. Baz is here too. That’s always a plus.
I pat where his foot’s going to be.
“My underwear are still wet,” I tell him.
I am met with silence as usual. With a groan I get up and find my trousers. I halfheartedly wave my hand at Baz.
“Don’t watch.”
I peel the wet underwear off and kick them somewhere. Whatever, I’ll get it tomorrow. I sigh. Good god , shit was feeling moist and nasty in there.
I stretch up long and tall. I breathe deep into my belly. Then I lean back over and put my trousers on.
I’m hot and tired and stupid and I slump over and wrap my hands around Baz’s neck.
“It’s so fucking hot I’m dying,” I tell him. I’m sure he finds this to be extremely pertinent information.
I kiss his nose.
“Goodnight, Basil.”
I let go and dump myself onto the floor.
I stop. Reconsider.
I put my head at his base where his feet will be. Someday.
I promptly pass out.
-
I’ve only been able to watch you from the mirror lately as you work behind me, which is fine. After seeing myself I don’t really want to know you’re looking at me.
Each day you come in and you don’t look at me and I don’t look at you and you stay where I can only see the hovering of the top of your head.
Things are further away in mirrors. I like it better this way. I can almost ignore your touch.
-
Except I can’t bloody well ignore you at all because you keep bitching about the heat.
Have you thought of maybe opening up one of those massive windows? One of the ones directly behind us?
I’ve seen everything inside your studio. It’s filled with strange, unimagined pieces. Your walls are full of watercolors that spill stories of worlds that never were. Small sculptures of dragons (those were, at one time) and bizarre beasts hanging at the edges of shelves. Statues as high as your ceiling made from scraps of metal, broken bottles and big dreams. You have a brilliant mind.
A brilliantly stupid mind. Would you please just open the window? Do you know how I must feel every day, locked in here, with the sun beating on me? And now I have to listen to you whining and groaning like a man child.
I’m going to ignore you and think about life before, when I was blanketed by the cold soft earth. When I didn’t have irritating, handsome blokes touching every nook and cranny, glaring and slinging insults—
My god.
What are you doing.
I catch the sight of your shirt flying across the room. In the mirror, I see your shoulders shifting and then—
Oh.
They’re—
Oh.
Your entire chest is bare. Pressed against me. It’s different without your shirt between us. For one, you’re sweating like a pot bellied hog. Also, you’re burning, blistering, even. I wonder faintly if you’ll leave welts (and then I remember I’m a rock). I wonder if I’m sweating (no, still a rock).
You’re breathing so heavy and wet on my neck. Arms around my waist. I can’t stop staring at them. Ugly, used (glorious, strong). I try to will them lower, for reasons I don’t understand.
This is worse than the sun. Heavens, it’s so much better.
-
This is hell. I’m in hell. I don’t know what a fucking rock could’ve done to deserve this.
I’d been managing fine, distracting myself by focusing on how, beyond the artwork, your studio is disgusting. Nothing is organized. You’ve got paints dumped and left open, brushes stiff and definitely never cleaned, food wrappers stuck to canvases, random garbage that I think you might use for a project but also has no reason to not be in a bin, and so much dust. I think I saw an actual bunny run under a counter. Or maybe it was a rat.
I was thinking of an efficient method for you to get your shit together (I’m certainly not touching any of it) when—
When.
When.
You come stampeding past me and dump an entire pitcher of water over your head. I’d call you beached whale if beached whales were pornographic and beckoning.
Your chest is so wide and your pecs are…swollen, round. Dark nipples, hard under the cool water. Your freckling is everywhere. I follow each one over your soft belly, see them hugging the muffins of your sides. I can tell they go lower, smattered in the hair that trails from the inside of your belly button and down into your trousers.
The way you groan. Open your mouth and catch some of the water. You swallow it down. That knot in your throat bobs. Water dribbles from your mouth. You shake your head. Droplets catch your lashes. You’ve said something but I don’t know what.
I guess as a rock my mouth has always been dry, but this heat in the pit of my belly. It hurts.
-
You’ve tossed your trousers off.
Like I said, hell.
-
It’s finally dark and everything should be cool, but you’ve been relaxing on the floor leaning against me. I am anything but cool.
Every inch of me feels on edge. I’m so sensitive that when you tap your hand at my base I feel it in my fingertips.
I need you to leave. I don’t know why. I just know you being here makes everything worse.
You’re standing up and I’m thinking finally this stupid, terrible day is over and I can dust away in peace when—
When.
Our Father, Who Art In Heaven. (Who Are Not In Heaven, bastard)
“Don’t look.”
So of course I look. Of course you strip completely naked. Of course.
And stretch. I think I’m crumbling. I think I feel bits of me falling to the ground. Your ass has freckles.
I think of nothing else until you’re putting your trousers on and the freckle right by the dimple of your left cheek disappears. I feel the need to scream.
Why are walking over here? Why are you putting your arms over me? I’m going to shove you. I can’t. But I would.
Your fingers press like tiny irons into the back of my neck. Your lips are moving. I haven’t heard a single word you’ve said all day. I want to bite them and make them bleed. Your lips. They’re cracked, anyway. And so close. So, so close.
You’re going to kiss me. For god sake it’s so hot. I’ve never kissed anything. My lips might be hard, you might chip your tooth. I wish I could shut my eyes. It’s so difficult to look. I’m dizzy.
You...kiss my nose. Like a butterfly landing. A yellow butterfly.
I would be disappointed if I weren’t so delighted.
When you rest your head beneath me, I feel like I’m floating.
-
I tried not to pay attention earlier when you told me not to look but now everything is quiet, aside from your shallow breathing, and I can think of nothing else.
I know how far the freckles reach. On the front side. Below your belly. They disappear in the thick hair that...holds...you. There’s a single freckle at the tip.
It mostly looked like mine, except, looking down at mine now…
I don’t know what this means. But it aches. I’m curious to touch it but it feels wrong while you’re here. Still touching me.Touching me just at my base and yet I feel your skin like a phantom all over me.
My stomach feels tight and full of lava.
I can’t touch you when I feel like this and you’re asleep, trusting me.
I squeeze my eyes shut. It even smells like you. Everywhere.
-
I wake up and when I go to stretch my hand hits Baz’s shin. I reach around and draw my nails along his calf. I’d do this all over him if he was alive. Up, down, up, down.
My hand drifts back down and rests at his ankle. “Love you, Baz,” I mumble.
I fall back asleep.
-
“I’m gonna hate myself for this, but I think it’s time to give you hair.”
I look at Baz’s face. He seems annoyed with me today. No clue why. He’s a rock what the fuck could’ve possibly crawled up his butt and died? Whatever.
I’ve been avoiding his hair because 1) I have to look at his face and 2) I can’t decide what hair would look best on him. He’s a guy so I automatically think short but…
Baz isn’t just any bloke. He’s Baz.
I walk up and thoughtfully run my hand down the side of his head.
Ah, that’s it.
I feel giddy. I kiss his forehead even though it’s midday. I’m smiling.
Baz, Baz, Baz.
-
His hair takes me over a week. It turns out perfect.
I’m standing on top of where his feet will soon be. My shoes are off, my shirt is unbuttoned, I’m holding onto his neck. I’ve not pressed myself against him like this in so long.
His hair is long and beautiful. Beautiful like the rest of him.
Baz, Baz, Baz. You’re so beautiful, Baz. You’re so handsome.
“You’re so pretty,” I whisper.
So pretty, pretty, pretty.
I’m not sure who’s making you, but surely it’s not me.
-
Whatever was boiling in me simmered hours ago. Now it’s all warm milk and honey. I’ve just been watching you, like every night that you stay since you’ve given me eyes.
You breathe through your mouth. Drool rolls down your chin. I wish I could say that earlier it put me off, but I just wanted to lick it up. (You’re the one making me, that must be why I’m so deranged.) (Or you forgot to wish me a working brain.)
I can’t help myself from leaning down to push a few curls from your forehead. I do it before the thought catches up with me and I have only a fraction of a second to understand true horror before you’re waking up.
I freeze.
-
You don’t open your eyes but you do decide to gut me. Run your fingers up my ankles, up and down the backs of calves.
You smile, sort of, when you say you love me.
-
Whatever. Hair. I don’t care. I stare over your shoulder the entire day and hope part of your shitty ceiling falls and flattens you.
-
Last week you sealed my death certificate with a kiss. (On the forehead. Like I’m a bloody puppy.)
I’ve not been thinking of it. (I’ve been obsessing over it.) (And the way your lids drooped. Your eyes glazed. You looked soft.) (I hated it.)
-
For the love of all peacekeeping stop touching me. You’ve finished my hair. Go away.
I don’t care how pleased you are. I’m not going to look at it. Ever. Knowing your sense of style, I probably look like I’ve been sweeping chimneys.
Do you climb everyone like tree? And half naked, at that. I refuse to acknowledge you. How pliant you are, how you cozy up to me like you’ve missed me. Like you know this works on me.
Maybe I give, just a little. I look at you. You’re looking at the fine lining of my hair and smiling unabashedly. You look at me. Your eyes skip all over my face. Your smile grows tenfold.
You’re young but you have the beginnings of crows feet. There’s an almost unnoticeable light colored freckle in the corner of your right eye. I want to push my thumb into it, imprint it on my skin.
“You’re so pretty,” I know you are, Simon.
-
You leave early that day, humming something you haven’t sung to me before. The sun is still high.
I wonder what your life is out there. Where you go. Who you see. How they know you. If there’s anyone waiting at home.
I only know you here, in this one dimensional space, cluttered with your things. You know nothing of me. I know you can’t actually love me.
I reach my hands up to my hair, scratch my nails along my scalp. I do it slowly. I think that’s how you would do this. It’s soft. It’s lovely.
-
Baz’s hair is long. It reaches his sixth thoracic vertebra on the back. (I know because I’ve counted.) It’s tucked behind his one ear. His first ear. The only ear you can see. His hair covers the other one.
I’m not working on Baz today.
Instead I’m sitting and doing charcoal drawings of him. I needed some variety. (Ha. Does this really count as variety? Probably not.)
I’ve drawn him mostly clothed. Hair back and washing dishes. On my old leather chair at home reading. Playing violin (he has musician’s hands) (I wonder what instrument he would play. Cello? Piano? I’ve done a study on violinists so I just picked the violin). Facing the side with daisies twisted into his hair.
I’ve only drawn one with him in the nude. He’s laying in a bed as morning’s beginning to break. He’s looking out the window, and he looks serene.
I’d draw him laughing, if I could, but that’s so much, and I don’t know how to begin picturing it.
If you could laugh, would I be able to make you?
-
When I’m done I go up and show him. I wedge myself between his arm and his chest. I don’t have to do it this way, but he’s felt cranky all day. I haven’t felt telepathically bitched at and bullied today. He’s off.
I flip through each page and let him look at each one. I explain the chair and the violin and ask him which instrument he’d play. I get the clearest answer I’ve ever gotten. It’s still just a feeling more than words, but it definitely feels like it’s not just my own brain mocking me.
I’m a rock; I can’t play anything.
I stare at the side of his face and toss my book somewhere. I hear it hit something, but I don’t care.
“Baz,” I say it out loud. Just because I know what he’s thinking doesn’t mean he knows what I’m thinking. “Baz, I—“
What do I say? He is a rock. He’s not just a rock. He—
He—
“Next time let’s be birds. We can go wherever we want, then.”
I kiss his jaw and turn around so I’m holding him, the best that I can.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. For everything. For the things I can’t give. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I’d give everything I have so you could go where you want and do what you want. It doesn’t matter if I’m with you or not.
-
It’s time to finish Baz.
-
You haven’t worked on me all day. Instead, you’re perched across the room sketching, only taking breaks to frown at me. You have charcoal smudged on your nose.
Fine, then. Sod off. Didn’t want your clumsy hands on me, anyway.
-
I want your entire body on me like this, always.
Your back to my chest. Your head leaning into the crook of my neck.You’ve finished your sketches and twisted yourself into my arms to show me.
Me. Every thick and rawboned line shows a different angle of me. (Is this why you were frowning?) (But now you’re grinning.) (I can feel it when you speak.)
Is this how you imagine me? A living thing?
Living a life of my own, in corners of your own home? You see me making art, just like you, violin bow in hand and suddenly—
I’m a rock; I can’t play anything.
Suddenly you stop, snap the book shut and toss it without checking where. You idiot, you’ve been working on those all day.
You peer up at me.
“Baz,” don’t say my name like that, “Baz, I—” I shouldn’t even have a name. I don’t need one. I’m here and you’re there and that’s how it’s always been and this is where I’ll always be—
“Next time let’s be birds. We can go wherever we want, then.”
You knock into every edge of my body in your rush to turn and face me fully. You kiss my cheek.
Simon, you hurt me. You keep giving me everything.
“I’m sorry,” and then you take it away.
-
You work slowly on my feet. It takes you two weeks, each foot.
You take frequent breaks not doing much of anything, just spending time with me.
When you finish, we both know what this means.
-
When you finish, you warm each foot under your hands. You kiss the tops of my feet. It feels like you’ve given me a key, when you smile up at me.
Just not the one I want.
-
That night, I work my toes out, take testing steps from my base. The floor is cold and kind of sticky. I look over at you asleep on it.
I look at the mirror that hangs on the door. I move towards it. I could leave.
My own reflection grows and swallows the room behind me. You’ve given me eyes, silver like the moon.
I touch the door handle, just to feel it.
I can only live where you aren’t. Come tomorrow, you might move me into a corner like the others. I might collect dust and watch you cherish other things.
The twitch of your foot catches my eye in the mirror, makes me turn back to you.
Before I’ve thought it through, I find myself next to you, kneeling on the ground. The choice was never mine. Wherever you are is where I want to be.
I would rather stay and watch you sleep.
-
He’s been in the gallery for a week.
I’ve never hung out in an art gallery this much. I’d usually come as needed and then leave. I don’t want to leave him alone, though. So instead I hover awkwardly all day and stay late until I’m kicked out.
I can’t touch him as much anymore. There’s a lot of things wrong with kissing all over a stone boy.
Baz is beautiful (of course). He’s so beautiful he got more than one picture taken for the papers.
Then the offer comes in.
-
I can’t do it. I can’t let him go for that long.
-
How else will he see the world?
-
What if something happens? I can’t exactly follow him everywhere.
-
So you’d trap him on “what if’s”?
-
I love him.
-
Then let him go.
-
Two years of different galleries and they pack him up tomorrow.
I haven’t pickpocketed in years but I had to come see him. I unlock the door with the stolen key and walk in.
I’m almost surprised to find Baz standing on his base. Where else would he be? Dumb thought.
I remove my hat. I toss my coat. I take off my shoes and suspenders in tandem. I roll off my socks. My tie goes flying. My first two buttons come undone.
I press myself up against him and I feel like crying.
Please don’t go.
Please don’t stay because you have to.
A tear drips down my face. I look at his hand. The one that’s waiting.
Just this once. I bring my hand up to his wrist I hold it. Like the first time.
I inch my way up, up his palm. I trace the lines. I go up. My fingertips touch the webbing of his hand. My breath goes.
Just this once.
I intertwine our fingers. I hold his hand.
I stare at our hands.
I look back at his face.
“I just want you to be happy,” I whisper.
I lean in.
“I love you, Baz.”
Our lips are almost touching.
“I wish you weren’t stone.”
I kiss him.
Fingers curl tight around mine.
Everything melts.
Oh.
-
Oh.
Everything comes back to me at once.
It’s yellow and blue and green like the sky that holds the sun and the green on the trees reaching up for both of us.
I didn’t know this is what kissing would feel like.
-
Everything leaves me at once.
Weeks without your touch, weeks watching you stalk like a ruffled bird of prey.
Weeks alone wandering halls stacked high with beautiful paintings. Weeks wondering which one we could escape in.
Your lips when you pull back.
-
I’ve got your hand gripped tight in mine and I’m not letting go.
I want to lean back in, kiss you again, kiss you all night—
Night. It’s night and you’re here because you broke into a museum. You broke into a museum and got naked. To kiss me. And I was able to kiss you back .
You had to break into a museum to kiss me because you tried to give me away.
I can tell you I don’t want to leave. I can tell you I love you.
You tried to give me away.
“I fucking hate you,” is what I say instead.
-
Well that admittedly wasn’t what I was expecting to hear tonight.
(Was I expecting a statue to come to life?)
(And talk?)
(Well, being honest I suspected he hated me.)
(But wow his skin is such a beautiful brown.)
(And he’s moving.)
(I’m glad I got to see him— him— before I died. Before I was too ancient to see him clearly.)
“Oh. Okay.”
I pry my arm off his neck.
“Yeah, sorry, mate. I—“
I look at our hands.
Neither of us are letting go.
-
Well this awkward. That’s not at all what I meant to say.
Simon looks a bit sheepish and makes a move to back away, but since I’m not letting go I tumble forward with him.
Oh god. My chest hits his and I remember I’m completely naked.
“You have to let go, you git,” I tell him, but reflexively and against my better judgement I squeeze his hand.
-
I’m so confused. What the hell does he want out of me?
He’s a little taller than me. Even without the base.
His eyes are beautiful. I didn’t know they were grey.
His hair is pitch black. (Or maybe it’s just the lighting.) My hand goes up to tuck it behind the ear I didn’t carve.
I jerk away. He just said he hated me. Why am I so bad at not touching him?
“Uh.”
-
He’s rubbing at the back of his head, messing up his already wild looking hair. Was he reaching for me? (Like I was always reaching.) (For him.)
He looks bewildered. Maybe because he thought he could get naked and manhandle a statue without getting caught (for a second time).
The memory gets me hot head to toe so I pointedly look over his shoulder.
“Are you just going to keep standing around naked?” It comes out a little weak.
Our hands are starting to get sweaty.
-
“I’m not naked.”
He’s naked. He’s very naked. He’s always naked. It’s cold in here. I didn’t take my shirt off because it’s always kind of chilly in here.
I yank him by the hand and pull him over to my jacket laying pathetically on the floor.
“Here,” I hold it up for him.
Oh god, we’ll have to stop holding hands for him to put it on.
I keep holding his hand but I manage to pinch the jacket with the ends of my fingers so I can put it around his shoulders. It’s not “wearing” it but it works.
He blinks.
Oh god he blinks now too. He probably has a pulse too.
I wish he didn’t hate me so I could kiss him again.
-
He keeps looking at me like I’ve grown two heads, like he hasn’t been looking at me everyday for several months.
His jacket is kind of stale feeling but smells like the sweeter parts of Simon that might come through if he never bathed.
It’s overwhelming and I want to pull it tighter around me, so I let go of his hand.
His dejection is immediately apparent, so fuck the jacket, I grab his hand again.
-
Baz dropped my hand and my heart hit the floor.
He immediately grabbed it again and it zoomed up to my throat.
He’s looking at me like…
Like…
I step forward and slowly, slowly wrap my arm around his waist. I give him all the time in the world to leave.
My arm gets tighter, tighter until we’re pressed together in a way we never could before. When I press, his skin gives.
I feel giddy.
I can actually feel his breath on my face.
We’re so close. I want to be closer. I want our bones to combine and our souls to fuse.
“Hi,” I say. His eyebrows lower, “come here often?”
-
I can’t help the snort that erupts from me before I shove at him with my free hand.
“I practically live here,” I tell him. He’s grinning and I think I might be, too.
I feel a little delirious. I think maybe I could float away, if not for his arm anchoring me down.
My hand hovers over his chest where I’d pushed back. I feel the threads of his shirt at my fingertips, the heat of his chest as warm as his breath.
I want to touch, but I don’t know if I’m allowed.
-
My face hurts.
I made him laugh.
I kiss him.
-
Each kiss is better than the last and each time our lips fit together just a little differently than before.
I let my palm press into him where I wanted to touch before.
I grip his shirt and hold him there.
-
I pull back and he follows for a moment, and my heart feels like it’s exploding. I laugh— I feel so delirious.
I kiss his nose and between his eyebrows and both of his cheeks.
“I love you, Baz.” I kiss his forehead. I kiss his chin. I’m gonna kiss every inch of him if he lets me.
Baz, Baz, Baz.
“I love you so much.”
I think I’m going to burst.
-
His laugh is echoing around the corridor, bouncing everywhere and back, but his declaration stays still in between us.
I feel like I’ve got rocks in my throat and for a moment I worry I’m turning back to stone. Each kiss makes it harder to speak, impossible to swallow.
“I—,” I don’t realize I’ve started squeezing his arm until I feel it tense.
He stops short of a kiss by my ear. I want him to kiss me again. I want him to never stop.
I think I can say it here, into the side of his face where he’s close but not looking. Where he’ll be the only one to hear me.
“Love you, Simon,” I say. It comes out a bit strangled and quiet, but I mean it.
I’ve loved Simon since the first hot, swell of rolling dirt. Since the first crater filled with the rush of ocean breeze. Since upstream fish and spring yellow daisies and right now. Since before all of it.
I loved you first, and then I was born.
-
The papers had a ball with the missing statue. Only the base was left with two perfect footprints carved out. No one understood why someone would steal a statue but leave footprints from the statue.
One headline said “THE LOVER WALKS AWAY IN THE NIGHT.”
I framed that one. It’s in the kitchen. Baz hates it.
I’m truly amazed that getting a statue “stolen” has made my artwork so much more popular. I’m getting gobs of commissions anymore. I’ve had to start rejecting some because it’s too much. It’s fine though; I’m making enough money that I’ll be able to take Baz to the continent for a month or two. He seems interested in France. (I’ve been saying we should go to Italy and see if he can telepathically communicate with other statues.) (He gets weirdly pissy when I bring up other statues.)
Everyone just assumes Baz was my model. I did tell Penny, though. I was kinda worried she’d want to cut Baz open and examine his organs. They get along well, though. It makes me happy.
Baz makes me happy. He makes me so, so, so happy. He’s an asshole. And he’s bitchy. And he’s too fussy.
And he loves me. And he’s kind. And he’s even more beautiful on the inside than he is on the outside. (I already knew that.)
We’re having a picnic in the country today. I’ve been sticking daisies in his braid. He’s telling me about what it’s like to be a rock. It sounds more exciting than I thought it’d be.
I kiss his shoulder and trail my fingers down his arms.
The sky is so blue and the grass is green and I’ll never not be grateful for the gift the universe gave me.
I suddenly grab his sides and start tickling him. He shrieks. I get elbowed in the stomach, the back of his head rams into my nose. He shoves me off and I fall back onto the grass. My nose hurts like hell. So does my stomach. I have tears in my eyes, and I can’t tell if they’re from pain or laughter. Baz is yelling at me. I’m so in love.
I’m so grateful.
I love him.