VI.

Like a lot of things in my life, the revelation of me coming to terms with my own sexuality happened in an after party. After parties are great places to connect with the essence of the universe. The witching hour, a space where the boundaries between this world and the other gets blurred, and the veil vanishes, to show how real life is.

The democracy of everything being a mess. Everyone being young, sexy and cocky. A lot of shirtless torsos and girls wearing high heels sliding over a dangerously wet floor. Stairs that go down to a bar that is always poorly run by someone that has more experience DJing as a nobody in empty dancefloors than serving cocktails.

In those places, it does not really matter who you are, where are you coming from or how much money you have in your pocket. Small talk is absolutely forbidden and you either go deep into the metaphysical philosophy of life, or you stay quiet and dance. You dance. You just dance.

Four by four, long intertwined productions. Kick, clap, high hat. No more than 7 synthesizers.
Four by four, kick, clap, high hat.

Kick, clap, high hat.

And close your eyes, open them again and make eye contact with that guy. That guy that is slowly changing position under the strobe light. That guy that looks good, with cheekbones from hell and a smile that could make you make things that you think you will regret.

He is suddenly behind me. We are dancing together. I learnt to dance to the beat with someone, our skin melting in a hot box, under the soil, in between the green and red lights, among the rest of the misfits. The epiphany happened walking back home. While the chemicals were abandoning my body, me and my friend grabbed some takeaway greasy food, as you do in those occasions, while the sun of the afternoon is hitting your eyes behind the sun glasses.

My voice, out loud, saying for the first time: I think I’m gay. My friend, who witnessed my very homosexual dance with another man couple of hours ago:

You think?

We laughed and talked about coming out, about being free and connecting with who we really are. I thought I was done, that I reached a turning point that was the start of the third act of my life. The road towards the happy ending.

Little did I know, every ending is just another beginning.

VII.

BBK live is the Glastonbury of the north of Spain. Depeche Mode goes every year, and the rest of the lineup is a blend of whatever else happens in between Coachella and any famous beer ad campaign. Straight people waiting one hour to see other straight people with acoustic guitars just to sing along the last song. Where are Foster The People now? Who cares?

I had the flight booked. My soul was somewhere else. The summer was hot, dry and tasty. Life was fake ray ban sunglasses and icy gin-limes. I met a guy that paid attention to me. My mind was blown, and for once, I allowed myself to be loveable. To be human. To be vulnerable, to be cute. I got my first tattoos.

We drove to the sunset, jumped in between waves and listened to Lorde. It smelled like chorizo and pizza, like one of those nights in which you stay shirtless deep down in the night.

A kiss.

I ran away from a that manipulative guy that didn’t even had sex with me. And I liked him. No, I was obsessed with him. His pretty face, his young nihilism. Our trips in the car, with the radio up, auxiliar on, jack to the phone. The drugs that we did. How we danced. How we were teenagers again. How good we looked together.

He did not like me. Not like that. He was lost. He was looking for something else. I was just there, I was convenient, smart. My engine got him; the logistics worked. Was a story with an expiry date. Was a rendez vous, a time bomb. Kick, clap, Tick, tock.

High hat, four by four. A supercut of us, edited by a version of me that is dead now.

VIII.

I was living in White City at the time. I came to London with a bum bag full of expectations and the energy that you have after you have hit rock bottom. I escaped forward from my hometown to leave a place that is now conserved in formaldehyde, frozen in aether. The life that I would have had if I would have chosen to be still, to not act, is unknown. The boy that would have been living still there, crystallized, does not exist anymore.

A fridge buzzed away in an off license. A white noise that became somewhat comfortable. The cashier called me, waking me up from the daydreaming. I could not fully understand his half Jamaican – half cockney accent. It would take me a while still.

It would take me even longer to understand that “You alright?” means just hello, and that not everyone is actually concerned with how I’m doing. In went to see Marina in the Roundhouse, right south Chalk Farm. I got drunk under low ceilings. I kissed like I never kissed before.

And I knew that I was in love with London. I knew it straight away. The energy of the city did not take me by surprise. I visited London before. But now, I was living here. I was another small particle of flesh and dreams dripping through the glass and the concrete.

IX.

A dryer spins fast on a Friday, downstairs on a small cupboard disguised as a wardrobe. The light of the kitchen filters warm and yellow through the open door. A sofa fights with a tilted table for the space in that small kitchen. Living room and cooking area often form part of the same physical space in tight economic circumstances. Two figures talk projecting shadows. One of them is smoking. Two beers lay opened and the chit chat flows with the tranquillity of a friendship that has been marinated in a rocky road.

The house is one of those narrow buildings with three floors, a tiny front yard and a backyard, located in a labyrinthic state purposefully designed to confuse Deliveroo drivers and friends. N16 8 UY was sent from some digital devices to others, and yet the guests needed to call to double check if they were following the right star to the right portal.
That postcode was sent to others that appeared in adidas tracksuits, with white socks and shiny trainers. Hoodies always on, engine too. Shady deals short of words, binds in bags that make people mad, blind, and vulnerable.

It’s almost always the anticipation and not the act per se. The lights of the kitchen are still on, and a Bluetooth speaker has showed up to burst and yell on a four by four compass mastered from electronic synthesizers. Two people have multiplied into sixteen by the miracle of mitosis and under the noise of the clinging bottles, the loud voices and the distorted techno the dryer may be still running.

They are wearing their most luxurious fabrics and biggest chunky shoes and their faces shine clear under the twinkly light. A laugh invades the room and conquers the moment. Fingers look for the opening in the tiniest Ziploc bag. Plates run over heads to take land on the table, where someone who is much more thoughtful than their mates has made room by putting away empty Estela cans and rolling tobacco packs. In the best houses they usually have two plates: One for the downers, one for the uppers. In a time when confusing recreational drugs have almost become a meme, they are tired of someone asking for the eleventh time is something is speed or ketamine. it’s never ketamine for the ones who ask.
Also, in the best houses, the plates where the white dust gets lined up as if they were good English citizens in front of a Greg’s are usually red, grey, or black. They have learnt that is problematic to identify the powders against a background of a similar colour. Even more so when your perception gets slightly altered. Or watered down.

And how the tables turn when a kitchen starts spinning and the people inside spin as well. Heads over heels, this world melting into the next one and light and dark getting closer to each other. And they are still fabulous, still sparkly and bubbly. Kissing each other in staircases and giving elusive hand jobs in houses that they just have been invited to. And the crockery spins and the shoes go on and off and the music still goes on and at one point the golden instant disappears, and more Ziploc bags are ordered and opened. Passed around without much thought. Smiles look like grins, and someone is sleeping in the sofa. The colour of the night threatens with a clearer tone of purple and the music stops making sense. Too many hands in the cookie jar.

Two people left in an uber that someone else ordered for them. The conversation turns dark, and the laughs are substituted by smoking slurps and a silent and emotional cry.

…

My therapist asks me if I’m okay. I am. I recover instantly and as I let it go my brain is not affected, and neither is my spirit. I’m ready to move on, gather energies and keep on fighting. Not big epic fights against the darkness where the dark horse goes over an overwhelming number of fiends. Not David, not Goliath.

Somewhere, the sound of a dryer abruptly stops. The clothes were dry a while ago. The clothes were dry, forgotten.

X.

I was cycling back home from work. Holloway road is a busy street during the afternoons. People come and go looking at their phones, cars fume with anger and entitlement. I guess that the street is noisy. I don’t really know it because fat noise cancelling headphones cover my ears. I usually jump the traffic lights that do not rule over junction. I refuse to bend my commute to Hannah who cannot be more of a slow walker, or Scott who is simultaneously smoking and drinking a diet coke in his mobility scooter.

And the chorus of the song I was listening suddenly travelled like a virus from my blood stream to my brain cells:

So I took the road less traveled by/
And I barely made it out alive/
Through the darkness somehow I survived. /
Tough love, I knew it from the start/
Deep down in the depth/
Of my rebel heart.

My smile kept pumping, my legs pedaling and the wheels of my mountain bike kept rolling and turning until saline liquid came out from the corners of my eyelids.

On a non-performative note, I needed to park on the side of the road, in between an off license that looked to well-lit and organized, because I actually feared crashing into the Toyota that was lazily navigating north London in front of me. I dismounted, and I took a moment, a long one. My tears became a traffic hazard thanks to some lyrics that – unprompted- visited me triggered by a pop song. My cracked phone showed some numbers and I understood that once again I was late for therapy.

I got home and I switched my laptop on. The crying has gone away, I was still weirdly happy. Not manic, just surprised. I caledl my therapist and her face appeared in the screen. A bookshelf dominates the shiny square my eyes stumble upon to. We greeted and she jumped straight into congratulating me for my journey, for how I have tamed my demons into riding this carriage in the best way possible. We all do what we can with what we have.

We do what we can with what we have.

I remember exactly how it went:

She stops talking to ask me, out of nowhere, why I’m smiling. I could not hold it anymore and I proceeded to tell my little mishap while on the road. And my thoughts start a stream that hit my muscles from behind in a synapsis cornucopia that turns to the left. A new set of words abandon my lips. Right after I talk about my happiness and the song and what not, another story comes out, much bleak and grim. A feeling of hopelessness, that takes me by surprise and comes to life as an explosion of unholy wrath.

How unfair life is. Some people live with the ability to be still and happy. They are not crippled by their overthinking; they are not drowned in a whirlwind of anxiety and depression that constantly chokes them. They just are. How do they expect me not to be envious? Not to be mad? When the partial truth of how everyone else understands, sees, and feels the world unveils in front of me? Now I understand how they are stars, lovers, business entrepreneurs and models. They are not afraid or exhausted.

The fights are small. Meditating while the dawn sparks in the windows. Eat that apple. Water the plants that sit under the windows. Breathe. Those are the fights.