Boyfriends- The Hourglass
I've always wanted to stop the hourglass but sand always will pour from one side to the other it can never equally be full, one side will always win. I often thought of love and life like that, love the push and pull, one rising to love when the other falls, one falling and the other rising. Life, a constant battle one side happiness the other sadness, some points are unbalanced, never equal then sometimes one state takes over the other. Metaphors aside an hourglass is an hourglass measuring time and time in truth can't truly be measured, each toss and turn we grow older and our time gets closer to no time, yet in that no time we still get older are bones age we're just not conscious of it anymore.
There's always been moments, episodes and a series of events, yet it's the moments that become moments that I cling to. It's hard to collect and think of them all but I know the ones that burn bright and most vivid. The memories that now hold us together and define a period and place in our lives. Peter Hall, a memory in my memory and a vision in my mind. Nothing can extinguish and no one could ever replace.
The first meeting: I met Peter at a library, I had just fell in love with the constructed worlds and works of David Levithan, he had just discovered the casual coolness of John Green, we collided over Will Grayson, Will Grayson by the two. I laughed that at that moment we had come into the library to get the book by authors we'd just discovered yet not a book by author instead we searched for the co-write. I'd learn Will Grayson was about chance, coincidences and worlds colliding and all three happened to happen to us. Peter was a gentlemen in many senses, he let me take the book home first but I thought no I'd buy it and we could talk about as it went on forming our own book club. I found out that he hated ebooks, waiting for Amazon orders & was too poor to buy from bookstores. It was different for me, I had money well my parents had money so I could buy books but I hardly reread so I thought it wasteful. It was fun to get out and go somewhere in the city where silence was appreciated. We talked and talked and we decided to jump on the tube to Waterstones. He seemed thrilled, saying he's never been here. He peeked through the books he'd always wanted: Edmund White, James Baldwin, Gore Vidal. He told me that films and TV never spoke of love the way books did, openly and vividly. I agreed, for so long gays had been the victim yet in books they were who they were. It was so hard to find someone so passionate not only about books and the authors I admired but about anything at all.
Flux: Peter and I had been talking for a while. I now knew more about him all the things that define someone's self. He liked Lana Del Rey, The XX, James Blake, FKA Twigs all the minimal, negative sounds kids. Peter loved films by Gus Van Sant his favourite being Gerry or Elephant or Last Days, he couldn't decided. He also liked Harmony Korine a particular highlight being Mister Lonely where famous impersonators lived on an island, forming a commune acting as people who in truth lived an act with the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Michael Jackson, people who weren't comfortable being themselves and here was people also not comfortable being themselves. Peter Daniel Hall, I liked Hall and we joked I'd take it on and our children would be Halls and their children. These were the talks sometimes about everything and other times about nothing. He was cute, interesting, cocky and quirky. He kept pestering me about meeting up. ' So a date isn't a date until we've actually dated in person, phone hooks up are cool but digital will never replace the physical and I need to gaze upon your beauty once more, young Doug' he'd say. I didn't know, I'd just, well three months ago, broken up with Tim. Tim didn't know what he wanted or what we were and neither did I. we went from friends to kissing yet never anything more. I guess Tim needed that bit extra but I didn't feel to give him that bit extra, I was a cliche Claire in many cases and just didn't want to lose my virginity in a secluded spot in his granddads old Mazda. Tim was an athlete, closeted and closed and I was the hipster cold and distant, too ambiguous for people to know if I liked guys/ girls or both and that suited me fine. In truth Tim and I didn't have much in common, except past times, when we were kids young and free from stress and strain, before we had to define relationships and sexualities, before interests become the main thing and sex the main hunt. I wanted to keep that innocence but Tim couldn't wait to shed it. Tim never did dates just the diner, his house or mine and driving to a secluded spot and talking about his practice, or a game. That was my world.
Dates: After a month of talking, I decided to take the dive. We talked about everything and nothing on Viber, Whatsapp, Skype, FaceTime. I met him at Embankment station. I was late he too early, I saw him as soon as I exited. He was beaming smartly dressed and all so handsome even more so than I remembered. He kissed both cheeks and we walked up into Charing X station, across the bridge and stopped mid way to marvel at London. ' this is my view, one of the visions I love the most, well loved the it seems I can only focus on you' I hit him softly, he was a soppy git, but it worked. The view was beautiful seeing old London merge with the new St. Paul's a modern relic entangled in the brutality of modernism. We walked until we ended up at the BFI. ' Welcome to a world of mine'. He showed me the library and we pawed through vintage Interview magazines written by Andy Warhol himself and then Vanity Fair's marvelling at how fashion and views changed decade by decade. After when we grew weary of looking at the past, we came back to the present. The BFI trip wasn't over yet we still had to book into 'the mediatheque', housed at the back of the building, it has several little booths with screens, where people sat gazing at the screen in ones, twos and threes. We watched some documentary about John Galliano in his early era. I looked over from time to time to see how immersed he was in the moment, his hand clutching mine, finding comfort in the moment and me, I couldn't help but kiss his cheek. His world was now my world?
*
Ballroom dancing, he came close and grabbed my hips pulling me close to him. I could feel his body through his clothes, his muscles tight and chest broad.
We looked up and laughed it was a beautifully crisp, not too hot or cold just
We talked about living, I said I if I was dying I do more, with an raging passion, he turned and said but you're dying.
The Storms: It wasn't always perfect he could be self centred and we could both be super stubborn. His confidence covered his weakness, well hid it. There's times I stopped talking to him for three to four days only to be reminded after the anger had subsided that time wasn't on our side. I'd think about the future when we argued, if we'd last and then I remembered we'd last as I'd be his last, I was his future yet he wasn't mine. I toyed with the idea of leaving, saving myself from the pain, I didn't know if that would make me a coward or a beast, although I didn't want to love for pity for the sake of seeing him go. I hated him and then I loved him. I always loved him but never knew the depth until he couldn't love me back and my love went on and on.
