Work Text:
i.
Raphael is not the best at writing, despite the fact that he's been doing it for decades; everything he writes turns out the same. Repetitive. Everything that he writes gets buried, hidden away somewhere in his room where no one will ever find it.
The only thing that he can ever write about is death. Poems about what it is like to die and be reborn, about hoping that someone would come back for you, about that hope crawling right out of you. Poems about finding someone who can restore it all. Always, always in second-person, to distance himself from it; if he pretends that these poems are about someone else, or a general existence, then it hurts less, becomes less – real. Less real.
He does it to cope.
Raphael sits in his room, at his desk. His oldest notebook is in his hands, and his oldest poems are poking at his mouth.
He coughs.
You’re sitting in your own grave, and here is the story: / you have won. / The life that you lived, once, full of monstrosities, full of / horrors that can’t be shown on screens, because they are / too graphic, too obscene, too inappropriate - that life – is gone. / Congratulations, you’re sitting in your own grave / and you’re hungry. / You have always been hungry. / Dead boys / are dead boys. This heart / is dead. It’s a different kind of hunger; once upon a time it was shining / and you knew that your life was over, and that he would / hold you into the sunlight, up / into the sun, because / dead boys are dead boys and you have always been /
Dead. Dead.
Dead boys / don’t love alive boys, or anything at all, and you’re sitting / in your own grave, thinking about what was stolen from you. / The hunger is painful—
“That’s beautiful.”
Raphael’s head snaps. “What—”
Simon is standing in his doorway. Oh. If it were anyone other than Simon, he would—
He’s not sure. It is a cold night. He’s cold.
“Sorry,” Simon says, “I needed to talk to someone, but… I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
“Thank you, please leave.”
“One thing before I go, though: did you write that? Because it’s beautiful. I’ve heard a lot of poetry, you know, and that’s amazing. One of the best things I’ve heard.”
Raphael stares at him. Simon is wrong. It’s not beautiful. He was stupid enough to read out loud and now Simon is calling it beautiful, calling him beautiful.
It’s not good.
“Yes,” he sighs. “I did. Don’t tell anyone about this.”
“I promise, I won’t.”
“Good,” Raphael says. “And – you’re wrong, it’s not, but I appreciate it.”
“It is, though, it’s so beautiful, I—”
“Simon.”
Simon sighs and leaves his room, and Raphael – he just thinks about beauty.
ii.
He hasn’t picked up the pen in about ten years. Writing is something that he does when it hurts, when he aches, but the problem is that he is always aching, and there is work to do. Raphael is very good at hurting; it is everything that he knows.
But now, for one small moment, he isn’t in distress.
He has Simon, and Simon is with him, Simon is sticking around, and—
There is ink on his hands.
He writes about love.
For the first time in his life, he writes about love. A good love. A positive love. He writes about a love that will not hurt him.
iii.
You are sitting in your own grave / and thinking about life. Congratulations, that monster under the bed / doesn’t look like you. Congratulations, that broken holiness / is still yours, it will always be yours, but / here’s the thing about sitting in your own grave: eventually, someone will come along / and pull you out.
Love isn’t a graveyard / this time. He is burning salvation. He is purity. He is / the boy you have always wanted, living dead. Dead, but / alive. Dead boys are not dead boys. They can resurrect. They can / touch you, and bring you back. What a beautiful story / that isn’t a story. What a beautiful reality.
This time around / love will pull you out of your grave / instead of burying you in it. This time around love / will not ruin.
This time around / you will get it right.
iv.
It is everything that he has ever wanted; Simon came home from the wedding and kissed him, saved him. Simon kissed him and whispered, again: you’re beautiful.
Raphael finally believes it. He is beautiful. This picture is beauty: Simon in his arms. This picture is beauty: Simon kissing him. This picture is beauty: Simon, and love, and loving Simon.
He writes in first person for the very first time. He doesn’t need to distance himself from anything now – it has all fallen into place. For the very first time, he stops writing about pain. Altogether.
For the very first time, he is beautiful.