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There was once a time that Amos laid limp on the floor of a club bathroom. Grafitti littered every wall, puns and jokes and scribbles that wished for nameless queer attendees to rest in peace, doodles on the mirror and along the shining tiles fringing the floors. So many humans, different pens, messages, handwritings.
Amos’ eyelids were slightly wider than just resting, staring near sightlessly at the ceiling, coked up and near blackout drunk. Their feet pained them, their heartbeat beating hard in their aching feet, in their fluttering chest, in their heaving breath.
They felt both like the only person alive but also completely surrounded by the human experience, scribbled on every wall, in every doodled dick and scratchy signature and vulgar joke- intimidated by the ghosts of their creators, left aching in the absence of true presence.
His mouth was dry, sweating heavily in his meshes and tights and near melted makeup, legs spread just slightly against the filthy floor- sticky with alcohol and piss. His heaving breath echoed, pinpoint eyes jittering their way to his left.
The sinks were there, but the block supporting them had the same iridescent tiles that patterned the fringes of the walls. Amos’ chipped, painted nails reached gingerly out to trace those tiny tiles, shiny like glittery pool walls, like the rainbow opals he rolled between his little fingers so long ago, just as fascinated as he was then. The floor is tacky against his cheek as he turns his head, curling near fetally to fully face the wall. Swallowing, mouth parted to breathe rattled breaths, he stares entranced at the dancing violets and blues.
When he used to be a little girl- so long ago now, when his hair was a wispy bob, when his teeth had a wide gap he could whistle through- he had always observed things differently. He’d stare at roses and leaves and blades of grass for hours at a time, imagining the tinkling footsteps of faeries amongst the shrubbery, the whispers of elves amongst the leaves.
Maybe since he hadn’t been prescribed glasses yet, he learnt to fixate on the little things that he could see, the little details only he could interpret in such curious manner. Or maybe it was in the absence of nourishment, of tenderness, that this attempt to find sunshine in a world that could only darken in their presence was born.
Maybe he was predisposed, like his parents, to never be quite normal. Perhaps from the moment he’d been left toddling along empty halls, head turning each corner hoping eventually mama would be there, it’d set his fate to never quite recover.
Maybe there’d been a reason he’d pushed it down so far, screamed against the cloth pulled tight against his face and turned it into a mask, had let himself be born anew, painted messy makeup atop it and named it amos.
amos, who stood gracefully amongst his peers in perfect androgyny, in gorgeous composure that really only took a hairline fracture to shatter.
Amos, the singer, the lover, the poet. Amos, who could recover in an instant, who absorbed traumas into his skin effortlessly, who would never be taken advantage of again.
Amos, who laid absolutely smashed on a filthy bathroom floor. But he couldn’t be blamed. It’s not fair to blame him. Ir he really wanted to be Amos, to be born anew like he so desired, surely he needed to tear his old brain to shreds first. The more time he spent forgetting that dark evening in his manager’s office, the easier he could transition. To metamorphosize.
He was just temporarily in a cocoon of liquor, and coke, and sex with whoever could press their lips to his with any semblance of sweetness- maybe hunger.
See Amos, (the singer, the lover, the poet) was untameable, unbreakable, like a mighty seaside cliff, a concrete dam, a lobster’s shell. No one would imagine him beneath them, never again.
No one would want to either, because Amos (singer, lover, poet), was enchanting and powerful in aura. An intoxicating person with a subtle air of control, who you knew could take care of you if you laid back against the sheets. A person that you simply couldn’t imagine dominating. Couldn’t force into submission.
Or at least they told themself this, laying on the bathroom floor of a gay club, the music thumping through the floor beneath him.
He doesn’t know if this was as hopeless as he could possibly get, or if this was only the beginning.
Je didn’t know how much he had to crave that he could forget he was raped until it finally happened, until the soul of that thrashing 17 year old boy stopped screaming, stopped sending rattling tremors from his heart into his ribs, infecting the very marrow of his bones, until his skin stopped rotting in the places it’d been pinned down, until he stopped fearing his genitals, the idea of anything entering him ever again.
His face twitches, and he rolls flat on his back again.
Now would be a perfect time to overdose, if you’re listening.
He doesn’t know who he’s talking to, but he continues to stare quietly up at the ceiling. Maybe by voicing it, it’d send a ripple to some higher power. Maybe he could die here, all ugly and beautiful, poetically misunderstood.
Maybe he’d have his name written on the wall in bleeding sharpie, some cheesy testament to his little life. He could see it now.
Amos- singer, lover, poet.