I wanted to sink into summer green like I would sink into summer blue. The plush green surroundings enveloping me in every essence of nature. Each waving tree obsequious to the wind in a relationship based on reciprocation. This nature giving way to each of its elements; the skies towering over the cool grasses, demanding its promised wealth. I would sink back into salty waters, my brown skin body enveloped by the fresh sea liquid – vaster than the universe. My hands wading smoothly and surely through the vibrant blues, toes and fingertips exposing themselves to the warmth of distant European air. Stretching into north, south, east and west, I would close my eyes to the sky. Its vivacity beating through the skin of my eyelids, revealing veins of mystery – secrets my body has kept well hidden. A blink and I would remain dazzled from the superior inferno above and its caustic fire taking no mercy on the cabin portholes shackled to my boybones. Alone in the waters I would feel the foreign spirits take my body out and away, a strong current sweeping me further from a golden shore, a mere distant fragment of reality. The pale beaches leaving my fantasy of solidarity, a forbidden realm for those who wandered higher planes.

Once out far enough to be hidden from sight, I would resume upright position, my skinny chest floating atop of the glistening fluid. My feet swiftly beating in rhythmic time – a second heart – keeping me afloat, my head above water, my shoulders glossy from the occasional spill. I would stop myself from beating, my body becoming submerged in a higher power – the cosmic waves corroding my skin, deeper until my lungs were empty. Lower, until my exterior was going to explode with a supernatural rush and I could no longer take my own drowning. Rising with haste I would burst open, refreshed by the distant voices speaking in a foreign tongue – one I would never fully understand. Their faces cracking into smiles as my skin became visible from underseas – I would never drown.

At the top of this hill I stood, my shoulders sunken into my body, condensing my skin for safekeeping. At the top of this hill I overlooked a city, the lights of distant lands, an immeasurable amount of unfamiliar lives moving on by the minute. Each light a soul, I thought, and tried to count. I lost after we hit double figures, my head and I, and slunk onto a dirty green bench, the colour of childhood gunge and gameshow surprises. At the top of this hill we ran, the wind through our hair from top to bottom, adrenaline shocking my veins into continuous motion. At the top of this hill I had never felt so alive, a body in movement mirroring the actions of mine – long stride, deep breath, just don’t stop. At the top of this hill, I wished I could sink into green like I would sink into blue.

The air is thick between us this morning, as if one of us is seeping deceit and trickery through our veins and dripping onto the woven carpet. Silence is elongated and spreads like a fog through the summer room, its smog polluting my vision of what is truthful and what is an illusion. His eyes – a mixture of teal and spring blue – gaze along my body before the rest of him follows their lead, his kisses on my hips, gentle across the cocoa butter layers of skin. In my head Natalie Merchant songs are replaying in fragments, an internal paintbrush pasting layer over layer of intangible lyrics across the matter of my mind. He ponders over whether he should leave or not – I’m ambiguous, vague in my answers – because either way, boredom is going to set in whether I’m solitary all day, or if I have company. Boredom oozes through space, penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere on its way from a stellar minefield, descending lower until it hits these foundations. Exuding through the frameworks, slithering down walls in its purest gelatinous form before expanding into an effluvium, a hazardous essence that permeates our souls. As we lay on the Japanese bed, it crawls into our minds, turning us sour and developing our citrus minds that may spit at any moment.

A finger through my curly hair as the electric storm cursed our balcony, the scented sheets and translucent curtains wildly flailing in the evening wind. Her feet slipping from beneath her as she tiptoes out to the balcony thinking, perhaps Thor won’t strike if I’m silent, the wind rushing through her hair, silently caressing the veins in her neck. The marbled floor and beige sofa we used to sink into shrinking in my mind, the glowing CD rack emanating aural vibes, floating in vibrations from ear to ear. As the lightning cracked the sky horizontal the warmth erupted through our windows, the thick patio glass thawing in an exothermic reaction of love and war. Another night we waded through a dark car park, the rainwater flowing around and above our ankles, the oily liquid shrinking as it climbed higher up our nigger legs. Sitting by the rippling blue waves of the pool we spat our native language at own our species, saving the foreign tongue for our more exciting adventures.

One day they were turning the beach on its head – flipping its life upside down and sucking the sea inside out. Evacuating the shore we stood back, high up on the sands next to the large pipe covered in algae and seaweed. The golden sands beneath our feet found their way into the superficial cuts along my toes – the product of an eager sea swimmer. Boy feet stood all around my own, small toes attached to small feet, almost hairless legs and their bodies coated in a deep coffee skin. We anticipated the arrival of fresh wet sand to throw into the air, screaming as it slopped back down with a plop onto the fair European sands. With a tremendous chug the pipe began to spit water and sparkling golden particles in bulk from down under. Grabbing our buckets we fished for crabs, their faded pink shells bubbling to the top before once again, sinking under the new shores to never be seen again. A pancake floated on the surface – a brown flatfish poking its eyes above the surface waiting for destiny to take control. We danced in the quick sands, flinging algae at our boy feet, careless of hygiene, because all that mattered was that moment.

We sit opposite each other and his hand rides up my twelve year old pyjama shorts, stopping on the outside of my thigh. The thigh. His hands run over two deep scars that I sometimes look at in the bathroom, as the shower creates steam that elevates in swirls, fogging the mirror until my face is unrecognisable. I push my face towards the heavily misted reflection and see nothing but the shape of my face, the outlines of my identity, and sometimes wonder if it’s really myself staring back at this face. His fingers detect a texture and replay the same line, up and down, before he looks into my eyes. I turn away from my reflection, afraid that someone else is staring into this body. I extend my arm and with a damp hand, stretched fingers, I wipe away the mist.

Today my family are treating me like a twelve year old delinquent. Phrases like bad behaviour are being repeated over and over. Don’t do this, don’t do that is ringing through my ears and I feel like a semi-reformed convict. My mother once told me that to deter myself from inflicting self-harm, I could take it out on the old crockery collection. Needless to say, when I smashed up a series of plates & mugs last night in a spontaneous rage, people were not best pleased. I mean, honestly, did I commit an insidious crime? It’s all been blown just slightly out of proportion.

Albie is just perfectly super fab. Yes.

this is all for you. because today you made my day shine, just like every other.

Later On

Over sickly sweet liquid, girls talked of sex and I observed the decay of the heterosexual male species. It is quintessential knowledge that gay men possess elements of beauty far beyond that of straights, and so I watched and watched, and I sipped nectar over ice, examining males in their attempt to woo the ladies of the evening. Short skirts revealing slices of legs, crimson hair crawling towards tender breasts – their eyes taking casual stares at the erogenous zones of the female anatomy. Liquor coursed my veins, sweet and thick in a mellifluous manner and I gently drifted in and out of a state of ethereal enlightenment, the soft juices moistening the tip of my tongue.