Chapter Text
An online virus, a broken pen. Those were the reasons why Frank came to the conclusion that his world would be ending soon. Online virus and my broken pen, "Fuck!" slipped past his lips. He crumbled up yet another piece of paper and threw it mindlessly behind him. The last two hours at his wooden desk have been spent either staring at the wall directly in front of him or ruining perfectly good paper for the sake of spilling some ink that summed up to nothing. His apartment was quiet, sometimes Frank thought that if he closed his eyes and listened, he could hear the dust settling into a thin layer on top of his furniture. He knew that was ridiculous, but he also knew he wasn't going to tell anyone about this weird sense of...whatever it was, so it didn't really matter.
He enjoyed the silence. The dark, too. Even the rain in late October, despite the heating never getting fixed because his job didn't pay well enough to afford both heating and rent. Nevertheless, the silence felt like an old friend. The kind that you strike up a conversation once a year and decide to meet up for tea or coffee or just to have a laugh. He was at peace with himself when his mind was clear enough to think.
If there was one thing to know about Frank, between his shitty job and studying for a better future, he indulged in writing from time to time. Not professionally, a hobby that has kept him sane throughout his teenage years. He loved the feel of the pen on crisp blank pages. The ink flowing when the words came so easily to him, the words shining in the right light. They became more than simply words once he could see them, once they were running from his veins to his fingertips. The relief of knowing that, perhaps, they were half decent.
It was difficult, following the same routine every single day. Wake up, take a shower, brush teeth, get dressed and leave for a 9 to 5. It paid the bills, sure, and it also paid for his overpriced textbooks. It wore him down like nothing else. On a bad day, he’d get into a fight with a customer that was most probably going to end with a complaint. On an average day, he would pretend he was working while studying for his next exam until it was time to clock out and go home.
A small apartment. Frank particularly liked it for two reasons: it was on the last floor and not too far away from his workplace. It was perfect for a broke student who needed somewhere to live, he would have taken anything just to be able to have a bit of privacy. A functioning bathroom (thank God), a kitchen that could barely fit two people in it and a living room that was turned into a shapeshift bedroom with a desk, a coffee table and a couch. He hated it, he loved it. Most importantly, it was his. The prospect of sharing an apartment with his mother again would stop haunting him, eventually.
The view from his window was, coincidentally enough, perfect for people watching. Frank spent most of his free weekends making up stories about the people passing by. Last December, while taking a break from studying, he noticed a short girl with ginger curls carrying law books. She was in a heated conversation with her friend. He wondered for a second if they were more than friends. Then he wondered if they were in love. And the never ending question of Have I ever been in love? would pop up in his head. There was still no answer, as of yet. Frank thought that if he had ever been in love, he would have noticed by now.
A month later he saw an elderly couple. Have they ever written love letters to each other? Letters they must have exchanged when they were younger and kept hidden from the prying eyes of the world. In the back of their closets or in locked jewellery boxes. The itch of picking up the pen would not leave him alone, he remembered, but he had more urgent matters to tend to that day.
He almost missed the tall shadow, merely an outline of a person. Nearly imperceptible due to the heavy mist of that early morning. A glimpse of gleaming dark on a completely empty and unlit street. Someone that could be anyone, someone that might not even be real. Which reminded him why he was slumped in his chair trying to find a way to translate this silhouette into words that made sense. People watching was just a pastime before the virus, before the pandemic and before he was fired a couple of weeks ago.
“I’m really sorry, Frank, but we do have to let you go. You understand.” He wanted nothing more than to wipe that stupid smirk off his (ex) boss’ face, but decided it wasn’t worth it. As much as it sucked, what was done was done.
His landlord was kind enough to spare him rent for a month until he could find another job. The problem was, if his landlord hadn't noticed, that the world had stopped on a random Tuesday and no one was hiring because they thought they were all likely to die soon. It was the peak of irony, really, because Frank was in his second year of medical school. He quit smoking for a while, it was a guilty pleasure he found hard to give up on entirely. Usually he picked up a pen instead. Today was the exception, words were not enough to shake the feeling off and the burn in his lungs was familiar, enjoyable even. He sipped on his already cooled down coffee, let the mug fall with a thump and tried again. Online virus, an ignited spark.
“This is fucking pointless,” he sighed. He couldn't go out. Writing was out of the question. He was running on five hours of sleep and pure adrenaline from cramming half a semester in a couple days. The logical thing to do was to take a hot shower, naturally. That's what normal people usually did, right? Take a hot shower and pretend the world doesn't exist and that their problems don't exist and that sometimes, maybe, they don't exist. Frank thought about that lately. How different would things be if he didn't exist.
Underneath his ribs, under tender flesh, Frank knew he wanted to live. Exactly in the spot his heart started to beat, right where he kept the last thread of hope. Water turned from scalding hot to comforting warmth too soon. He stood there, unmoved until the stinging faded and his body relaxed. It gradually washed over him, a wave breaking into ocean rocks. Perhaps they were right, a shower could fix everything.
Frank turned off the tap and he was instantly hit by the freezing cold drifting from under the bathroom door. He quickly wrapped a towel around his waist, strategically avoiding the mirror. Once he managed to find a T-shirt and some pyjama pants he got on sale last Christmas, he picked up his phone and updated his poetry website. Yeah, he was well aware it was not the coolest thing nowadays to post your shitty poetry on a website. He didn't care much for social media though, it was a nice alternative for publishing his stories anonymously.
It took a long time to pick a proper username that wouldn’t give him away. dawnpoet31 was harmless enough. Pretty rad, actually. Not that he would admit it to anyone. Comments were not an often occurrence, Frank didn’t mind that. The occasional "wow did you write this?", "keep it up!", "nice" and "are you ok?!" were appreciated. No one was expecting anything from him, but he still felt like he owed an apology to these people he would never meet for being in a slump.
Typed, deleted, typed again, rephrased, deleted. Ten minutes later, he settled for a mediocre, bordering on funny note and pressed the post button.
dawnpoet31
hi! sorry, but no post today. saturday special might turn into sunday special, who knows? poetry takes time or whatever they say. see you next week, probably. take care!
They’ll think I’m a lunatic, it sounds so unnatural. His phone landed in between his mug and an anatomy textbook. He turned around hoping that he didn't just embarrassed himself in front of a bunch of strangers on the internet. After a tormenting minute of acting like he was not bothered by the situation he created, Frank picked up his phone again with the intention of turning it off for the remainder of the day. A small flash on the screen showed that he had a new notification that just came through.
His nerves buzzed, actually buzzed, and Frank told himself to snap out of it before he was going to go insane. He really needed to leave the house one of these days. The newest post hasn’t gathered any views, as expected. Which meant that the notification was from one of the previous ones. Great, another person who most likely thinks I'm fucked in the head or some sort of freak.
What Frank read next made his pulse skip, just enough to stop the fidgeting he was unaware he was doing with his other hand.
deepestblueg
i get it. sometimes life does feel like endlessly drowning
Well, that was new for sure. Someone that got it, to Frank it sounded foreign. How can they get it? An arrogance so crystal clear, it made him shiver. He thought he dressed up his worst days in pretty metaphors that no one would come close to understanding. Most of them only thought they sounded deep or poetic or they were some bullshit some random person thought would do numbers. This person said they got it, this person with a username just as peculiar and ungenerous as his own. deepestblueg.
Frank didn't turn off his phone, he didn't reply either. He simply stared at his screen until the sun was setting and the bed got colder and he got hungry. After eating the leftovers of his previous dinner, Frank went back to that poem. When he wrote it, he didn't even think it was good. He liked it despite not being good, it wasn’t meant to be good. It was meant to make your skin crawl in all the right places if you knew how to read between the lines.
and my feeble bones break under the weight of missing
missing the marrow i gave you to keep
as a promise, you're like a broken clock
i was there for a good time, i know that now
and if we crash, we crash together
the end of the world is closer than you think
and my feeble bones won't get buried
i'll clean them in holy water before i spit your name
one last time, what you did will kill you off
and i'm just fine in my misery
i'll have you know
If he read it over and over and over again, he might just see something new. The words might switch up and unlock a meaning he unpurposefully put there. Something that feels like drowning, something that pulls you down under, leaving you gasping for air. Putting up a fight you don't know you'll win, but incessantly trying. Frank couldn’t find it. His eyelids were heavy with white nights and his arm got numb and his blanket was the softest there has ever been. He slept peacefully through the night, with no dreams or nightmares for once.
Perhaps a haircut was long overdue. It was winter, the sun hid, his hair turned a shade darker. Not pitch-black, not rich brown. Wet sandy beach, melted honey. Only a paintbrush kept it secured behind his ear, a gift from his grandfather. It wasn't his kind of scene, he preferred making up characters and costumes and anything to do with people, but something shifted in him that evening. He felt compelled to draw. No, no pens. Just a brush and used water-colours.
A lake surrounded by willow trees in late spring. Hope, healing, starting over. Being reborn out of what almost killed you. The shapes were wrong, the colours slightly off, but it didn't matter because it didn't have to be perfect. It only had to stir some kind of emotion, a reminder he was grateful for. Art was supposed to make you uncomfortable and he wanted his art to do that.
Loneliness, he was acquainted with. Not being able to do anything except watch reality TV and have a meal so he wouldn’t wither away was unbearable. He needed things to do. When the pandemic hit the globe, it spread on every news channel like the plague. People were getting fired left and right. The grocery stores were packed with desperate people buying canned food and toilet paper to last them a decade. Misinformation was easier to digest than admitting a worldwide crisis was happening.
Gerard was splitting himself in half trying not to lose his job. He worked for a charity that helped people who were experiencing homelessness. It was honest work and it felt good, giving back to the community and whatnot. The truth was, the workload was too much for just a couple people to handle it. That became even more evident when they were told the funds were cut. The funds might as well have been non-existent.
He tried to find another job, but he didn't get one single call back despite having a master’s degree. Apparently, that wasn’t impressive nowadays and it frustrated him to no end. Gerard had an interest in psychology since he could remember and he didn’t regret pursuing it, he supposed the world hasn’t realised its importance yet. Which might change with a global pandemic, hopefully.
He resigned to scrolling on his phone and stumbled upon a poetry website. Poetry wasn’t his favourite, but he was bored and he read everything else you could possibly think of. So he checked it out. It wasn't going to be a life-changing experience. At first, he wasn't sure if he should leave a comment. He realised that wasn't necessary. But then again, he felt like he should say something to let this person know they captured that sinking feeling so well and that he understood what they meant. "were you ever in love?" he typed and deleted it. Too direct, maybe ignorant. Trying to fit into a box.
However, he couldn't help wondering if that was what had happened. If this stranger fell in love with someone and it ended so tragically that those words were all that was left of it. If love was so disastrous, if love didn't just leave everyone bleeding and questioning. If love...but it was none of Gerard’s business. He could not simply project his personal experiences with love onto someone else, therefore he tried to come up with something better. He wanted to be liked by this person, for motives unbeknownst to him. Call it a gut feeling. In a split second of not overthinking, he commented and turned his phone off. If a reply came, he would see it in the morning. If it didn't, that was alright too. The world would keep spinning.
To keep himself grounded (and sane) during his course work in university, Gerard stayed away from parties. They never ended well. Most mornings, he’d drink his coffee and write for his dissertation. Later in those same days, he would go for a walk across the field close to his flat or go into town and have a look around stationary shops. In no time, he had a small pile of supplies that he reached for when he needed an escape. It stuck with him, it was a good outlet that wasn’t hurting anyone.
Strokes of blue dissolved into each other, the first layer always matching the colour of his eyes. Gerard wasn’t the biggest fan of how light his eyes were, between cloudy skies and gleaming oceans. He thought they were boring. He preferred the darker shades, striking midnights. Shallow, yet deep. Patiently waiting to be known. Maybe someone would want to know lighter shades, too.
clean them in holy water. That was the perfect description for it. Washing his skin wasn’t enough, he needed more. Always needed more. Flesh cleansed to the bones. Sometimes the only way out was in. Deliberately drowning in the darkness that accompanied solitude. And the most important thing was, he wanted to make it into art. A lost love, a broken promise, a life that has yet to find its meaning. A way of passage, a mending heart, a tomorrow that will come.
As sunrise was rapidly approaching, Gerard found his inspiration for the first time in weeks.
Light filtered gently through the curtains, shining faintly on Frank's face. It was late morning, if he had to guess. He groaned in frustration, mostly because it was going to be another twenty four hours locked up in his tiny apartment. With his eyes closed, he tuned into the sounds of the city. Frank couldn't remember the last time he heard the high pitched voices of children going to school, their parents scolding them for being too loud. Before everyone had to start isolating, he would pass by an old woman selling flowers right outside the building. She wore long skirts and had one of the kindest smiles Frank has ever seen. He made a habit of buying some on the day he got paid.
"Are these for that special lady of yours, young man? Would you like the newspaper wrapping?"
"Yes, they are. That would be lovely, thank you.” They weren't for anyone. That was half a lie, they were for himself. There was no one special in his life and he wasn't looking for someone either. He liked lilies the best.
"Lilies again! I'll add some sage this time. Good for longevity, you know?" she would go on while skillfully putting together the bouquet.
"I didn't know that, actually,” he said, handing her the money with a nice tip. Then he'd go upstairs and rip apart the nice packaging, put them in a vase and wait for his next paycheck.
Frank hasn't seen her in a while and the streets grew quieter each week. On TV they suggested ordering groceries at home as to minimise direct contact and maintain the distance. So that was what he did. He missed his friends, sharing their crazy ideas and allowing himself to dream about being anything but a doctor. Only if he was talented enough. He couldn’t afford to sulk. Halfway through making his first coffee of the day, he remembered the comment from yesterday. Not that he was duty-bound to reply, it was just another comment. Nothing special, he could ignore it.
Once his brain was sufficiently caffeinated, he sat back down on his bed, took a sip that burned his tongue and grabbed his textbook. Anatomy was his favourite, he liked knowing where everything was. Bones, muscles, vessels, nerves. It was rather impressive how the human body was built in such a way that it would protect the most important parts of itself. He also discovered that poets knew absolutely nothing about it and would barely mention the arteries. Veins were the primary concern, which he didn't mind, but he has a preference for arteries. Frank could write pages about arteries and the blood pumping through them and the bursting sensation when a migraine got the best of him.
Were you ever in love? He must have started at the pages for too long, surely. He was not starting to hallucinate voices, it hasn't been that long since he last spoke to another human being. But the question kept insisting at the back of his head and it would linger there for the next couple hours. Until he would give in and check his phone again. Frank itched to say something clever back. Just to prove that he can keep it up, that he hasn't lost that ability completely.
dawnpoet31
yeah, can be like that
life is full of shit, man
that's why you picked that username for yourself?
“Whatever,” he said out loud. To give himself the impression he didn't care if the person was going to reply again. For the next ten minutes, he obsessively glanced back and forth between an illustration of the heart and the black screen of his phone. He wasn't expecting anything, but he was craving a conversation that was not with his mother or about how studying was going. A real conversation with someone that wasn’t going to judge him because they didn't know him. It didn't have to be more than a simple conversation and afterwards they wouldn't have to speak ever again. A one and done kind of deal, just to feel something else besides boredom and exhaustion. Incessantly reaching for something that wasn’t there.
He was zoning out when another notification from deepestblueg came through. A private message: "i just like the colour blue". Well, that was underwhelming. A second message popped up: "i think it resonates with your need of feeling clean, though". And a third: "if that makes sense". Now, this person was spamming him and he didn't have the energy to reassure them. Yet, he was the one who started this. Sort of.
dawnpoet31
yeah, it does. i guess i was just curious why you picked blue
deepestblueg
why did you pick dawn?
At that, Frank took the time to actually think. He liked dawn, he was drawn to pick it. He liked the chill, the specific smell that froze your lungs and his skin warming up as the night melted away. The sun was a constant reminder that he could try again. It was weird to say that to a total stranger, though.
dawnpoet31
idk, best time of the day?
deepestblueg
i agree. so why do you write?
dawnpoet31
it's a hobby, just passing the time. i like writing on paper more than posting online
deepestblueg
i'm not a big poetry guy, but i think yours is pretty good
Frank felt like he should ask a question too, he just didn't know what was the right thing to ask. He found it easy to talk to this person. He didn't want to ruin it.
dawnpoet31
why don't you like poetry?
deepestblueg
not my favourite kind of art, nothing more to it. like i said, i like yours
dawnpoet31
thanks, i guess. what kind of art do you like?
deepestblueg
drawing. give me a pencil and you won't hear from me for hours
He was not much good with a pen in that sense. He tried it a long time ago but he was not naturally gifted. He hated things he wasn't naturally gifted at. So he never tried it again. He bit his lip and let go just before puncturing the thin layer of skin there.
dawnpoet31
is that what you're doing right now?
The reply came instantly, just one word: "yes". He waited a minute, two, ten, but no other message came through that afternoon. He let his head fall against the pillows and sighed with his full chest. This whole thing was stupid, he didn't even know the name of the guy. He said he was a guy. Frank checked to be sure, definitely a guy. No wonder he was not big on poetry, most guys weren't. He tried not to think about it too deeply, it was just another chat like the many he had before.
Right at the beginning of quarantine, Frank started talking to someone after taking a break from dating. He was not particularly interested after a while, but he didn't care to let him know either. He didn't care much about anything back then. He knew it was probably wrong of him to lead this person on, but it was only talking and it was a good distraction on bad days. Hell, he was a terrible person. That was the moment when he realised that maybe he wasn't over his last relationship or what happened in that relationship. That was the moment when he started writing properly since he was a teenager.
was my innocence not enough for your greed?
did you have to crack my ribs?
wasn't your alcohol enough to keep you warm at night?
well, this is you paying for all the hell
that you forced me to swallow down my throat
a confession of sorts, i want you to know
that i hate your fucking insides
i hope you bleed to death, you and your melodramatics
It was the first thing he wrote and it was born out of anger. Frank was angry, he has always been angry and he has never known where to put all the anger inside of him. His nightmares have been haunting him since he was seventeen, but now he was older and they were still there. Always when he was already on the ground, always when he thought he couldn't go any lower. Sometimes, he truly believed the floor would open up and he would fall through into nothingness and he would stop feeling everything. It was nauseating to feel everything the way he did, every feeling dissolving into every fiber of his being, clawing at his brain and heart. It got more intense after midnight, when he'd stay up late or wake up screaming and sweating. On those nights, he could taste salt on his lips despite not recalling crying. Tasted salt and iron and desperation. Repeatedly wishing for it to stop, for his body to stop remembering what it was like to have unwanted hands wandering under his T-shirt, on his neck, down his arms, over his hips. How his own hands failed him and how his voice died at the back of his throat and how the bones in his wrist were filled with lead and how he thought that was love.
He blinked hard, closed his anatomy book with one hand, purposefully put his phone under the pillows so he wouldn't hear it buzz and turned on the TV. The world was burning, he was fine with that. He was fine with the world ending and the pain ending with it. He really hoped he didn't just talk to someone called George or Gabriel or Gareth. God, Gareth would have been the worst of them all. Once the thought settled in between his neurons, he couldn't stop thinking about what this guy's name was. G was very obviously the initial of his first name. Frank briefly heard his own voice in his head saying "Yeah, my name is Gareth and I like to draw". And then a sound rippled through the room drowning the news reporter, Frank was laughing. A real laugh.
dawnpoet31
am i interrupting? i got a question
deepestblueg
no, not really, i'm almost done. shoot
dawnpoet31
so you told me you're a guy. i'm a guy as well btw
is your name gareth or garry? it's ok if u don't wanna tell me tho
deepestblueg
what? the hell no!!!! why would you think that?
dawnpoet31
i assumed g is like your name or whatever, it would have been kinda funny if it was tho
deepestblueg
oh, yeah i guess that's a dead giveaway
friends call me gee
dawnpoet31
gee? that sounds like a pretty cool name
what's short for?
deepestblueg
haha, thanks
i don't think you'll be a big fan of it if you dislike gareth so much but it's gerard
Frank turned it over in his mind just like he would do with a rock he found interesting and eventually decided it was a pretty cool name.
deepestblueg
you still there, mistery man?
dawnpoet31
yeah, yeah i'm still here. i think it's a rad name
nice 2 meet u gerard
deepestblueg
not getting that often, appreciate it
do you want to remain anonymous or like tell me your name as well, i swear i'm not a creep
unless you're much younger than me in which case i would be
shit, how old are you? or should i just see myself out?
dawnpoet31
chill man
i'm twenty three, ur good
deepestblueg
oh thank fuck cause i'm twenty six
still, what should i call you?
Gerard waited. He managed to accidentally burn a hole in his brand-new Nirvana shirt with a half smoked cigarette. He used to be a social smoker. He blended into the background, had a couple friends he used to fuck shit up with. If you ignored the bullying and everyone’s assumptions about his life, Gerard was pretty much a normal kid growing up. Supportive mother, a step-father he would have rather never met, a brother he used to share everything with.
In a world where the only means of seeing someone’s face to face were Zoom calls, Gerard’s world was collapsing too. He missed the stability of his old job. He missed helping people out and putting his degree to some use. Being a temporary artist and taking commissions from people on the internet was not a feasible way of living. Existential dread surrounded him and loomed heavily over him. Gerard refused to let himself spiral back into his old coping mechanisms.. His phone buzzing jolted him out of the reverie.
dawnpoet31
idk, what about just dawn poet? i quite like it
Great, what am I supposed to do with that? This guy was impossible, it almost changed his mind on showing him the painting he only just finished. The painting that was inspired by his poem. When he didn't say anything back, his phone’s screen flashed with a new notification.
dawnpoet31
or maybe keep it to initials for now, i'm f
Gerard tried to figure out why this grown man would not tell him his name. He wasn't going to look him up later or anything, except he totally would have if he knew where to start. He considered what the best response to that would be, but there were only eleven words floating in his mind: he definitely has an awkward name as well, something like Francis. A tiny smile crept up his facet, they might end up being friends. A friend that wouldn’t back away when his mental health took a turn for the worse.
dawnpoet31
i promise it's not something stupid like francis
deepestblueg
how did you know i was thinking that? jesus, are you psychic or something?
dawnpoet31
seems to have been a lucky guess! no such thing tho
i'll talk to you tomorrow gee, gn
deepestblueg
good night, francis
12 am, Gerard finally decided to stop staring at his phone like a madman. His cigarette smoked itself out.
1 am, he couldn't fall asleep despite his best efforts of counting sheep. He got to twenty and got bored pretty fast after that.
3 am, he tried listening to music but that also failed miserably. Not even his curated playlists, the ones he spent hours on end perfecting helped.
By the time the clock hit five in the morning Gerard made up his mind about not going to sleep at all. Sleeping in sounded more appealing. He stumbled lazily into the kitchen in order to make a cup of coffee and read some more of F's poetry. The website was created only a few months back, but it already had over fifty posts. Most of them were quite short, Gerard didn't mind that. Straight to the point, if the point was supposed to be straight when someone used so many adjectives he even had to google some himself.
He didn’t lie when he said he wasn't a big fan of poetry, he always thought of it to be a bit pretentious. Then again, art was subjective and a lot of people thought drawing was overrated and anyone could paint if you gave them a brush. Which was true, sort of. It took a certain something to express emotions through your art. F understood that.
That kind of poetry was different. Gerard didn't pay much attention in class, but he remembered that poems usually have to rhyme or have a rhythm or measurements of syllables, whatever that meant. F's poetry just...was. He was not trying to pretend to be a poet, his writing was raw with words he found best worked together. It resembled a diary filled with entries into the deepest part of his mind where he buried parts of himself only accessible to him. Gerard got that. It was not any different from analyzing people, always seeing more in them than meets the eye.
Gerard didn’t escape anger in his youth. "You’re not a bad kid, Gee. We’ll figure something out, okay?" his mother said on the worst night of his life. Kids would keep their distance after the incident. He tried everything: deep breaths and other stupid exercises, going for walks, even seeing a shrink. It worked for a while, he learned that it wasn’t his fault. But kids were cruel and unaware of how their actions affected him and he had no way of telling them because no one was listening.
Things at home weren't exactly great either. Gerard taught himself how to mask his long depressive episodes that stretched across his teenage years. He convinced himself that if he studied about it, he would be able to make sense of it. He did. It was worth it, in a way. Knowing that he wasn’t crazy and he didn’t deserve it. That the damage was done, but he could help himself now.
The second he turned eighteen he moved to another city with the money he's been saving up for months, far away from his family. His mom called first. His step-dad sent him a text that he had no idea why it took him so long to finally delete it. His brother gave him space. Gerard needed a fresh start. He changed his phone number the following day.
There was such a thing as ‘being too self-aware’ so drawing became his affordable form of therapy. It was soothing in ways he could not really explain. What he knew with unmistakable certainty was that he loved how his hands would do all the work and his mind would go blank. It was such a privilege to be able to not think, just for a moment. To not be burdened with the world or your own insecurities. He imagined that writing for F wasn't too dissimilar, they resonated in a way. Gerard thought that was lovely. Maybe F was lovely, too.
He wondered if his new acquaintance was going to wake up soon. Based on his last message, it was only ten when he went to sleep which was a bit early for Gerard. The time difference must have not been that big after all. Not that the first thing F would do after he woke up was going to be texting Gerard. He probably wanted to brush his teeth, shower or eat or maybe have a coffee. Gerard really hoped he liked coffee. Maybe F hadn’t been laid off at his job, maybe he was never going to text him again. Maybe Gerard needed to stop overthinking because he just met the guy and it was not going to be the end of the world if they never talked again. Maybe...he stopped scrolling.
these dirty clothes are all i have left
will my tears burn them?
they’re stained and i don’t know
where this blood came from
i tried to find my way back to you
i got lost in this mind, i ran after you
but i was chasing the ghost of who i used to be
and now i’m on my knees screaming, begging, dying
He was supposed to listen
i can’t tell if this is true, if you are gone and i am you
can’t we meet where only the sun can reach
this skin of a sinner?