a draft of a draft while i'm feeling stuck

Ultimately I’ve been feeling pretty stuck creatively/purposefully. I’m not 100% sure I want to keep writing some random weekly thing, especially when so few people read it. I started this as an exercise in writing more and embracing the sort of awkwardness that comes from writing more. Part of being a writer means you have to be a little less afraid of being embarrassed and willing to publicly grapple with ideas and concepts, even if they seem melodramatic.

But there’s another side of that that comes from not being particularly popular either. When you continue to write things that nobody really reads the embarrassment of it starts to overtake the creative exercise part of it. I like to think that the things I write have value or purpose or meaning, but even meaningful things shouted into the void end up being purposeless.

That’s all to say I might stop soon. I’m not yet sure. The ritual of trying to write weekly feels important, but there are some parts of it that are starting to wear me down a bit. 1

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot more lately about a concept for a short story that has been rattling around in my head throughout the years. The title is The Lives of Ordinary Men I Have Loved and I see it as a series of stories all about different men and their lives2. I’ve never really started it, just thought about it a lot, so here’s a really really rough first draft of a single part of a larger story.

M

We found his Tumblr3 and, drunk and high, they dared me to follow him. We’d scroll through the posts until we got bored, mocking the bad poetry and moody prose he wrote. They’d roll in laughter at each post of a half-naked man he reblogged. “God, can you believe it?” Jason said. “I could always tell he was a fag.”

I played along, even though I didn’t find it that weird. I didn’t know of anyone like that: gay and out about it. I didn’t understand what anyone could find attractive about something so simple. I saw men’s backs and chests all the time, soaked with water or wide and bulging, forcing themselves out and back into the water. Still, I don’t know if it was worth laughing about–even though I did.

“Bro,” Brian said. “This guy looks just like you.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I told him.

“No bro, I’m telling you it could be you.”

“Shut up. Why are you looking that hard at them anyway? See something you like?”

“Fuck off, I’m not a fag.”

“No, you know what would be hilarious?” Jason said. “You should send him one of you. See what he says.”

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

“It would be hilarious. I bet you would get him all nervous, make him think someone actually likes him.”

Alone in my bathroom I took off my shirt, examining the soft skin and hard muscle. I tried to imagine what he’d see me as but I couldn’t. I practice posing for a bit, trying to remember the pictures he saw before. I was drunk by now or I was high or maybe I just liked the idea of teasing someone. Anyway, I grabbed my camera and kept posing, keeping the angle high and cropped tight, making sure to not get my face in it. I flipped through them all, trying to find the right one. The alcohol was getting to me. I could feel my face getting flushed and red and warm. I found the best one and deleted the rest. I waited a bit longer for the color in my cheeks to disappear, the two of them egging me on from the bathroom. I showed them the image, and patiently waited for the site to load, “thinking about u” one of them wrote and sent it to him. We laughed for a while and then moved on to something else. We kept checking throughout the night to see if he’d respond. 

Brian and Jason left but I stayed up, scrolling through his blog, the bright glow of the screen burning my face. I kept refreshing, waiting for a message to come. I laid down in bed and tried to sleep. I tossed and turned: obsessing over his reply. 

I couldn’t sleep. The entire place was quiet, save the creaking fan ceiling fan. I stumbled back into the bathroom and stripped. I pinched and pulled at my body. I traced the outlines of my muscle, the hard ridge of my collarbone. I tried posing again: contorting myself into the poses of the men he reblogged and liked shamelessly. What must it feel like to live so transparently? To crave flesh and muscle so wantingly you’d risk social humiliation? Something hot and exhausting was crawling up my body. 

I refreshed again, still nothing. I flexed my back, my biceps, my triceps. I told myself I was pretty high but it didn’t matter. Refresh. Nothing. Refresh. Nothing. I tried to stop the feeling from crawling through me. It felt dark and twisted like a thick briar patch was growing in my chest. I laid back down and kept scrolling, clicking through each photo he posted and scrolling, dizzy and furious through the endless stream of naked bodies. I felt my muscles tense and my brain buzz. I kept going. I followed the endless stream of men and their disjointed parts dance across my screen: hairy legs wrapped around each other, pink lips interlocking or pressed tight against sephia chests and cocks. My lungs were begging me for air and my body was shaking. I kept it in. I didn’t want to lose the feeling. I closed my eyes and imagined the shapes of the boys I knew from swimming: their tight bodies and wide chests stretched and posed in perfection. Bodies glistening, lips quivering, eyes shut in a tight euphoria. 

I got as close as I could but couldn’t finish. I checked my inbox for his message: refreshing it again and again and again. But it never came.