And this is how I knew we were a marginalised people. Not the sticky floor, not the questionable arrangement of outdoor seating, not the wafts of urinal cake leaking into the dance floor. The fact that they serve Miller High Life and nothing else, what the ever-loving fuck is this place?
Do you wanna dance?
I’m not a dancer. A dancer is a body at home, a flowstate, a knowing place to land. You already know my answer. I take my beer and go outside where it’s less crowded. I wonder briefly how we got here.
Did I choose this place?
Now when I say I’m not a dancer, I mean my body doesn’t behave with grace and athleticism like I want it to. But that doesn’t mean I’m a bad fuck. Actually, I know my way around another body the way you move around the room – confident in the direction of desire. I know how to plot a roadmap: I let my nose go first and then my lips and then my teeth. You taste the way a burnt orange sunrise feels: endless and then over too soon. I would swallow the morning if I could.
Hey, I brought you a beer.
You hand me a second beer although I’ve barely finished the first. You’re thirsty, sweating. If I could choose something right now it would be to slide down the side of your neck from your earlobe to your collarbone and leave the first new marks in the trail. We’re allowed the whole world, the two of us, we’re allowed a map that goes beyond the borders of our own skin. It’s just that your throat is my favourite place.
Remember how we met?
Springtime, a different springtime. The train station. You smiled and it was over, I mean really over, I fell for that little chip in your front tooth the second I saw you. But you’re a dancer and I’m not. I’m more of a wayfarer looking for port, hoping I find purchase on someone’s jawline just long enough to rest. You love the press of a crowd, the intimacy of display. I’m looking for a chest to hide in. I would happily crawl inside of your ribcage and ride around in it like a small bird, observing the world from a safe distance. I’d dance vicariously.
Happy anniversary.
I don’t think we moved too fast. I mean, if you asked me, I would say we didn’t. There’s a part of me that is simply so occupied by you that it spilled out into something like buying sheets together and naming your belly button ring Ptimothy (the ‘P’ is silent). I wonder, briefly, if I can ask for a champagne coup for the occasion.
The sky can’t make up its mind.
It looks like rain briefly before the clouds part again. It will rain. Or it won’t. We will have to drink these piss-water beers and be fine with it. You will dance and I won’t. You won’t mind the beer but I will. I worry that I suddenly understand the Talking Heads too well – letting the days go by, letting the water hold me down. Did I make up my mind?
Let’s go home.
And never come back here again. Something about the bartender’s vacant expression makes me feel like I’ve forgotten something, left the gas on, left my wallet in the bowl by the front door. You take my hand and I remember this: home is the space between our interlocking fingers. We cradle it gently between us, ours to carry.