We are the only two walking in the rain, Apollo and I. I’m wearing a mustard-yellow raincoat; he is not. I’m licking my wounds, some clearly visible, still breathless from the fight. He finds this all the more intriguing, picks up his pace as he heads towards me, a bounce in his step, almost a recognition. It is a kind face with its own scars, one that has fought and been defeated. As we interact, he circles me, his distance decreasing. I remember that time a Turkish man asked to take my picture as I wrote in a cafe. How he invaded me with his eyes. But this is different to that. I let out a breath that has stagnated in my lungs for days. This encourages him to breach the distance. We take a photo. I disappear in it.
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Candle Boy drips candle wax on his body. It dries in strings and lumps. His hair is light pink. It’s greasy and lies unevenly around his shoulders. His head is far too big for his body. He looks very mischievous. He is rude. He would say anything to anybody! But he knows a lot, more than anyone else.
The mornings you get out of bed before me,
feigning sleep, I watch you dress
to gauge how you behave
when no one’s looking.
And as you waddle round the room
attacking drawers, I focus,
fascinated, on your fork,
your breasts, your buttocks
as if I’d never seen them.
That night I held the moon’s yellowed skin
between my teeth, night’s breath on my palms,
dove into lakewater. Surfaced for
air only to find riverbed. Punctuated my strokes
with panic, minnows
opened my scars, daytime came pouring out.
“You see, I tried to stay awake, but it is simply too hard for me. I cannot hold on to myself to stay here. Not even a moment,” I explain slowly to the shadow in front of the haloing light, trying to disguise my melancholy.
“The dream I had last night felt real to me.” I try to look at the shadow’s face but it is a blur buried in a hazy glow of radiance.
When his friend Steven asked him if he liked pornography, Thomas was immediately sorry that he answered yes.
‘Great, there’s a job for you, but it’s not what you might think.’ Steven said.
This was just the beginning of Thomas’ troubles, however. He was a devoted musician; music was the most important thing in his life, apart from his ex-girlfriend, Chloe.
Steven and Thomas became friends when they were in a band together called The Haircuts. The most memorable thing about The Haircuts was that none of the band members had any hair, either by nature or by razor.