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Ever since it appeared amongst Henry’s belongings, a couple of weeks ago, Alex has caught repeated glimpses all over their place of the hardcover with the not-so-subtle title and its by now more than familiar dark lavender colour.
It has not escaped Alex’s attention that the book has quickly gained one of the constantly highly contested spaces on Henry’s nightstand, has somehow managed to remain there, cushioned between a well-loved and clearly equally worn copy of Sense and Sensibility, as well as a currently half-read copy of The Price of Salt – Alex judging from the indentations on the paperback’s spine, left by the enthusiastic reader Henry is.
Alex knows, reading makes an intense thrill run through Henry. Alex loves seeing it manifest in his boyfriend’s features. Counts himself lucky every time he is around at night to witness Henry reaching for the read he is currently engrossed in and still has not gotten enough of during the day.
The way Henry’s hands, Henry’s eyes caress along pages, often tenderly brushing along the same line, the same spot of paper again and again, Alex can always tell when a read is especially precious to his boyfriend.
This particular book has clearly instantly become special to Henry with the amount of time he excitedly spends with it.
Alex has really only seen its exterior so far, does not even know where Henry gets his ideas for these kinds of books from. One day, when he finally will ask him Henry will go on a long rant about BBC Radio 4’s literature driven programming.
The book is special to Alex as well, or rather the act of seeing Henry reach without hesitation or second thought for the lavender encased book, its spine boldly emblazoned in startling white all capital bold lettering 100 QUEER POEMS.
It makes Alex smile like an absolute idiot every single time; knowing and getting to see that Henry feels so damn safe with him to be himself; remembering vividly how void of any true bold trace of himself Henry's rooms in Kensington Palace had always been are to this day, Henry spending as little time there as possible.
Alex, repeatedly finds Henry sitting all over their home, nose buried deep within the poetry collection’s pages, reading and rereading the same page over. Eyebrows furrowed as he works to solve the riddle of an ever new mind layed open on a page. Endlessly captivating to Henry it seems.
Alex loves, looooves how in those moments Henry’s features are a picture of fascination above all else.
One afternoon, Alex finds the book left open on their coffee table.
A single line catches his eye. Has him stop.
Reach for the book himself.
Has him read on. Time liquifying around him.
Alex startles when he hears a throat being cleared next to him. He looks up and finds the light has already drained out of the sky outside. “Baby, don’t make me jump like that.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
Alex only then notices Henry’s eyebrows raised in question, his lips quirked in amusement.
“Found something interesting?”
Alex’s expression goes soft, head tilting he pats the space beside him.
Kicking of his slippers Henry makes himself comfortable at Alex’s side. Legs curled beside himself, his arms come around Alex’s left arm, intertwining limbs, and he leans his head on Alex’s shoulder.
Alex smiles wide at the sight.
Fully settled Henry asks again, more poignantly this time around, “We’ve been together for years, you’re not usually one to go for my poetry collections. What caught your eye?” Henry sees Alex’s lips firmly settle into that smile that Henry knows to read as happy excitement before Alex gives an answer Henry had not anticipated at all.
“You.”
“Sorry, um, what?” Henry asks eyes wide.
Alex laughs happily, “You, baby. As usual, you.”
Still all Henry can do is add a frown to his widened eyes.
“Us too.”
“Not the helpful answer you think it is, sweetheart,” Henry replies smiling now too.
To Henry’s surprise Alex begins to turn the leaves, finding the page he had first laid eyes on, he reads out loud “I sit in the dark in a blue jumper that scratches and ask you how you would draw a bear if you’d never seen one before.”
“Oh,” Henry answers, hiding his lips against the fabric of Alex’s shirt. As if to hold in, hold back all else he wants to say about these lines, anything but new to him.
Alex not having missed Henry’s self- silencing finds himself shaken. Wants to protest this act so strange to find holding space between them these days. Henry has stopped biting himself back a long time ago around Alex.
Seconds ticking by, unreasonably stretching out between them, Henry presses his lips only harder into the fabric covering Alex’s skin.
Alex quickly gives in to the urge to reach for Henry’s mind, easily spills the first words that come to his own, had come to it reading what he has just quoted. There is no shallow between them so he dives right in, dives deep, hoping neither of them will drown tonight.
“Even after all our time together, all we have talked about, reading these lines helped me think, helped me understand about what I could not picture for myself because I couldn't see, couldn't see someone like myself looking around for a long time. You ... you had to look to history to find a trace of a semblance to hold on to. But what do you do with that in a world so different today?"
In an even smaller whisper, “I sometimes still feel very lost,” all he says, as if Henry does not trust himself to openly connect all the dots Alex is laying out for the two of them to share, share in the experience spelled out. An experience they do after all share, and do not, Alex is all to aware, not in the same way, not even close. Talking can do a lot but it cannot make up for everything, not for how vastly different they have grown up.
Alex moves his arm from Henry’s hold and around Henry’s shoulders, hand smoothing along Henry’s upper arm. Finds a rhythm back and forth in this motion, meant to be soothing, reassurance.
Henry burrows into the warmth of Alex’s chest, stays quiet, except for a brief hum in answer to the welcome physical attention. Distraction, Alex suspects.
Here is what Alex thinks he knows:
Henry reads poetry.
Henry loves poetry.
Henry has never though talked to Alex about anything but classical poetry, Alex realizes then, No text this … personal.
“Baby,” Alex spells out in a hum, long and drawn out.
Feeling Alex’s voice reverberating in Alex’s chest, Henry tentatively clears his throat, openly signalling he wants to contribute to this conversation, but all he can do is open and close his lips for a moment more.
Alex puts the book down beside himself, both arms coming around Henry’s too small feeling form, Henry’s shoulders drawn in too tight to signal anything but pain and fear to Alex.
Alex hears then Henry’s voice muffled where Henry has cocooned himself further in Alex’s arms, “Some days I still feel so lost and ... trapped, all at once. How does that even make sense? I’m far from alone feeling that way. I know. But …,” Henry takes a deep breath shuddering against Alex’s chest, “… but reading the words others have put to that feeling, so many different ways to show that feeling, despair, hopelessness … . It makes me want to scream actually, feeling that senseless stupid suffering carried ….”
Alex can feel Henry try to push through that next breath, push through to that next thought, find, put words to it. In the end Henry cannot quite, and it shows so clear to Alex why Henry loves this book of queer poetry so boundlessly, giving, giving words Henry cannot find alone.
“I don’t know if you saw that line about Marcel Marceau.”
To Henry’s astonishment Alex quotes the exact words from memory, “but still he taps against the glass all Marcel Marceau in the wall that is there but not there, a circumstance I know.”
Throat dry, Henry can only nod, then swallows, finds his voice enough to add, “It makes me hope and despair so deeply. I want no one to feel like I do.”
Alex presses a kiss to Henry’s hair, a silent acknowledgement of the thought expressed.
“Reading: Pray one day you’ll have a family like this all these traditions will pass on to you Pray! chocked me up in a way … a way …,” Henry pauses.
Henry’s eyes meeting Alex’s, Alex sees Henry’s lips tremble as he searches for the courage to add his own thoughts, still, after all this time, when something is dragged up from his innermost thoughts, he finds himself fighting hard against the impulse he was trained to use, to squash it all down.
Alex knows, tries to understand how unsure of what he is allowed to think, let alone voice Henry has been made to feel almost all his life, until so recently really, so very recently.
Alex hates Henry having to fight this hard to allow himself to be. But it is a process, and Alex finds himself determined to be here to see Henry through.
Henry’s voice trembles, “I think, there are people who really don’t get that. I feel it down to the bone for the threat that it is. The cage built around me I found myself reinforcing with every new expectation. The very opposite of freedom. Buried alive inside.” Henry breaks off, voice newly weakened adds, “Being seen, allowing myself to be seen is a lot, after being made to feel I don’t even exist, can’t, shouldn’t. Never would. You showing up for us changed all that.” Henry feels Alex hold him closer and tries to sink himself into that feeling.
“People looking at me, that piercing feeling attention …, often when I’m out on a walk alone with David, without you, I do forget to breathe, and then I stand there, trying to catch my breath, but I just can’t, people looking at me, I … I … forget … that I deserve to breathe.”
Alex senses Henry growing increasingly still in his arms, breaths shallow now, catching in Henry’s throat.
Alex takes one of Henry’s hands in his, leads it up to rest against his chest and breathes deep for Henry to feel.
Again.
And again.
Until Alex can feel Henry’s breathing catch on to his.
They simply breathe together for a while, Alex listening, feeling for Henry’s breaths steadying.
“You deserve to breathe,” spelling it out Alex feels something break in him, he cannot point as to what but it feels like a loss not a gain. “Baby, that’s it. In. And out. We're breathing. We're breathing.” Suddenly Alex is not sure anymore who he is trying to reassure.
Henry gives a longing nod into their embrace. Longing, always, for Alex to be right in his optimism, needed to change anything in this world for the better.
Alex notices only then the tears that have begun to silently rush down Henry’s face. He reaches, thumb smoothing the salty liquid out on Henry’s skin, Henry lifting his gaze to look up at him as Alex asks, “Baby?”, even and soft.
Henry’s hand finding its way into Alex’s curls, Henry’s whole body reaches, until he can rest their foreheads together. The touch, feeling Alex’s breath mingle with his own, his anchor.
When Henry remains quiet, shuddering through several breaths, there but uneven, Alex repeats warmly, “Baby.”
Henry gives another nod through still running tears.
“We’re here. Together.”
Henry hiccups through the tears, “I really had no idea, you getting me being into poetry, for Christ’s sake you being into poetry would do this to me.” The chocked bitter tasting laugh chasing this confession is wet and desperate.
Alex presses a kiss to Henry’s forehead, then searches out his eyes again, gaze earnest, “I do get it, Baby. You feel seen. I do. And it’s great, and it’s scary as fuck! To know what to do with that ….”
Henry chokes on an all out open sob. Held in Alex’s gaze throughout, Henry nods, sobs harder, fully curling back up in Alex’s embrace.
Alex holds on with all his strength, still, even when Henry has grown completely quiet in his arms, and Alex is unsure if emotional exhaustion has dragged his boyfriend into sleep.
As gentle as he can Alex shifts them together to lie down on the couch, feels Henry shifting against him a little into a more comfortable position.
When Alex kisses his forehead once more, runs fingers gently through Henry’s hair the whispered response he gets would confuse Alex, did he not know exactly it stems from the queer poetry collection now lying next to them on the coffee table.
“I want to summon myself to be free.”
Alex’s arms tighten, forming the very mould Henry needs, to push heavy breaths against, to feel held, to feel safe to let go. Be free. Be optimistic.