Part III: Fire
Streetlights
A section of a longer form of photopoetic-prose, Streetlights explores the experience of a queer teenager living in small town in middle-England. The text below is a portion of the chapter, and is currently on-going. Set to be published alongside all other parts as an anthology, this body of work sets in motion certain ideas, experiences and desires of queer experience in relation to both sexuality and gender.
Chapter I: New Worlds
Robert stood long underneath the orange lit street lamp and imagined each strand of his hair on fire in the mid-November dark
every follicle on fire
every fibre on fire.
He shone briefly like a lantern in the sky then moved from beneath the thickening burn out towards the others
stood upright and taut, themselves stretched out like streetlights
all punctured in the ground.
Just come out it’ll be easier said the tall shadow her lips tightening as she annunciated
brown hair rushing down the rocks of her back like muddy waterfalls. Face and attitude of a head girl in-waiting and all the authority. Robert turned towards the shadow growing arms and legs then all the other bits. Come out said the shadow as if shadows knew what it meant to be perpetually bathed in light. Not good light but bad light.
Robert knew the difference.
Good light hugged him like his street lamp. Felt warm on his skin gave his flesh a golden glow his hair a basket of brown hay now burnt rich and auburn as a dead thicket of fern.
Bad light was surveillance.
Followed you around and made comments. Bad light pushed past the eyes bore deep into the body like sclera on extensions.
Followed you indoors and rearranged the furniture. Smashed glasses tore up books threw your good clothes on the floor and left you with the mess.
Clear-up takes years, thought Robert.
Clear-up is hard to do on your own.
Just come out it’ll be easier said the shadow
their words hanging in the air like dandelion seeds. Robert reached out his left hand caught one
wished for all the pain to stop
wished for all the thoughts well meaning the questions good-leaning and bad intentioned all to stop.
Bad light rushed around the carpark like frantic children playing tag cutting through any kind of warm felt, seen or left behind
found Robert bathed in orange stood talking to a shadow.
He was not at fault.
Stood accused in spotlight for being different all his life
his crime of loving those not yet loved, his prepubescent body bent differently to others. Just tell everyone you’re different and they’ll stop spoke the shadow her own wounds hidden in the dark.
Robert knew she was lying
that she meant well
that she knew nothing
that she didn’t mean anything at all
that her words sounded louder to Robert than to her.
Tones swung around the car park and echoed
off the walls of modern language blocks where bigger boys from the top floor threw javelins towards to the tennis courts
the boys bathrooms his body never went to
to the corridors assembly hall and changing rooms
his mind never went to.
Small rooms filled with rage.
Bigger rooms with no air no room to breathe filled with words that whispered safety green
screamed red danger
shone ambivalent amber.
Emotions felt like dying leaves in winter.
He knew that all she knew of people like him were off the telly reaching out to her in all their glitter,
knew what it was like to be different in this kind of way in this kind of place
knew what it was to be shouted at day after day beaten month after month shunned year after year
knew what it was like to be scared to pee where you’re not wanted change clothes where you’re not wanted play sports where you’re not wanted walk the streets where you’re not wanted to live where you’re not wanted.
Knew what it was like that strangers know your name and use it paired with anger and complaint words hurled like stones had their own gravitational pull like orbiting moons so common your tides begin to move with them and become your own.
Sounds that hurt as much as real stones that flew
from cars
across the road
from busses and arms and feet and legs.