Pains

Earlier today, I received a reminder email for an event at Waterstones on Oxford Street, tonight. It was the launch of the latest edition of Chroma ("an international queer literary and arts journal". It is published twice a year). Since I have nothing to do, I decided to go along. Four of the authors published in the current issue read extracts of their stuff.

One of them turns out to be a blogger (now included to my blogroll), and I managed to track the following piece which he read and I really liked. It was definitely the highlight of the evening.

ah, sweet pain!
Eyes-to-the-skies it. Glance-at-the-walls it. Four weeks of loving him, of watching him, of being loved and watched by him. Holding him. His hands and fingers. Fingertips. Onto him. Onto his gaze. Into his gaze. Into his any-little-bit-of-him. To hold that. To have that. To have and to hold that. To have that to hold. Having that to hold on to. Having that. Doing that. Pin him down. Play pin him down. Play down. Play hard. Play dead. Play till he pinned me down. Till he would pin me to the point of not playing. To the point of playing for real. To the point of playing till there was no point. To the point of not playing. To the point of screwing. Missing that. To smell. Yes! To have his smell. Smell his smell. Smell his smell on him. Smell his smell on me. The never-get-used-to-that. The never-get-enough-of-that. The after-bath aroma. The first thing of a morning. The last thing at night. Loving the smell of his smell on my bedsheets. Doing that. Waiting for that. Missing that. His laughter. His head-back-eyes-streaming-free-full-frank-full-on laughter. Laughing hard. Laughing long. Laughing in the thick of it. His laugh. His laugh at my laugh. Laughing loud like that. Missing that. Wanting him. Wanting him to want us. Wanting us. Wanting us to want us. Wanting. Never wanting to be naked of him. Missing that. Him. Us.
A Hand Full of Stars, June 2006.

At the end of the event, I overheard something this blogger said to an audience member to that effect that one sometimes end up living for blogging.

I wish someone could tell me how to do that. For about a month, now, I have been "working from home", this means that I spend all my days on my own in my room. I get out of doors two or three times a week (Chorus rehearsal, Weekly-Cultural-Outing-To-Tesco). Sometimes I bump into a flatmate and Slightly is regularly at the other end of the wire (phone or email), as ever. This is my life, now.

And that was me thinking, I had no life at all when I work at the Council! How mistaken.

Strangely though, I am not really depressed about it all (YET!). Time flows in a haze with very little intellectual stimulation. Stimulation of any kind really. Every day like the previous one, and like the next. I feel numb. I take refuge in gay themed films (thanks to µTorrent, I am now well furnished in that department), living by proxy even more than I did when I used to read a lot; something I seem to have lots the taste of. I don't even feel lonely (YET!) and when I find myself with people, where I used to be blank, I now feel ill at ease, a bit apprehensive and I think fear is not fear from the surface.

More than ever I am a wraith in this world, passing unnoticed, leaving no mark. I don't even live for blogging, as you will have noticed from the lack of post recently.

It seems to have stopped bothering me, though. Mercifully... Apathy and contentment huddled happily together under the duvet.