#this all started when I realised my uni has a grand piano anyone can play

[weewootruck]

Very close to making a bad financial decision and buying a new piano 😬

[castawxayaway]

half hearted: part five

part five? ALREADY??? okay I say it every time, but thank you guys for the love on this and I actually have something to ask of you- something small, minimal effort required: 

please please pleeaasse go read this post and send your responses, it’s an opportunity to unite as a group and yeah, it means a lot to me :) also I have finally started packing for uni (I leave sunday omg) but I feel better about it right now, so that’s that. lastly the anon who sent a request it’ll be done after this, I promise!

and enjoy part five ! (and pls give some feedback- love hearing it all!)

one / two / three / four / five  / six / seven (last)

collection of writing

Today he had it all planned, for the first time I was oblivious to whatever and wherever the day would lead us to. I secretly liked how he cupped my hands and blew his warm breath into them to keep them less than icy, that he held my hand as we wandered together and laughed at the little things I said. We’d sat inside an italian restaurant and spoke about life, about what the future might hold. I told him more about my aspirations and never before has anyone taken it seriously or cared that much. I could see it in his eyes, there wasn’t a facade, nothing was forced- he actually wanted to listen to me talk about my dreams. 

We had walked through the park, kicked the piles of rustic leaves as the children remained out of sight, locked in school for the day whilst our inner children was let loose. As I threw the leaves up around me and let them fall I saw his phone flash between the colours in front of me. Once they fell I raised an eyebrow to him, but he kept a small smile on his face not giving anything away, just the same smile that always hides more than I’ll understand. After we had tea on my balcony, he bought some cheap chairs to put outside so I wouldn’t freeze like I had a tendency to in the mornings. 

He kept saying things, small comments that no one else would say, that I wouldn’t let anyone else say without retorting. When we were in the restaurant the waiter told me I had pretty eyes and I was too flustered to respond. As I glanced Dans way his jaw was tightly clenched, and his hand moved closer to mine and the waiter walked away without another word being exchanged. I was told I had the most lively laugh, that I had humour deep within my soul. His compliments weren’t superficial, they meant something, something else. He wasn’t pointing out features on my face and commenting on them, instead he told me about my personality, about my hobbies, my dreams- anything that was something to adore, to even love. 

We are still sitting on my balcony, it’s the early evening and the sky is too plain for my liking. Yet despite the lack in excitement we sit in a comfortable silence, I sip my tea as does he and reflect over it all, over the past four days with him. No one has ever cared like he does, the way I wake up and he’s just there, looking at me with a smile. One morning when he was fast asleep I glanced down to see him, his left arm outstretched towards my bed, and all I wanted to do was hold it. His mouth hung open and the stubble was thickening whilst his bright eyes were hidden in the world of his dreams. I couldn’t help but simply admire him, my internet friend after all this time. He was just asleep on my old mattress, the one I hated sleeping on, but I didn’t want to suggest my bed. I didn’t want to assume the best option as he is a stranger- a physical stranger that is. 

“Dan,” I speak up, slicing the comfort into two as I feel my heartbeat racing faster already before the question has even left my lips. He turns his head and focuses on me, the same dimpled smile never faltering. “you said you wanted to play something this morning?” Tearing my eyes from his I fiddle with my nails, distracting the intensity of my heart pounding against my chest, moving my necklace as it beats. 

My question hangs around us, it weighs down on my shoulders as if each word is piling on top of each other, forcing me to sink in my chair with embarrassment, with a sense of shame for trying. “Come on.” He stands up quickly as I sit back up in the chair. Lifting my head up he stands in front of me, his arm extended before me with a glint in his eyes, something different. “Don’t just sit there, we’ve got somewhere to be.” The right corner of his mouth lifts, something other than the usual expression he gives, this time there’s something else in it, something I haven’t witnessed. 

Leaving the flat we walk nearer to the park, the crisp breeze thickens around my legs, making each step slightly harder. My arm is wrapped around his for warmth, at least I tell myself that is why. “Where are we going?” I ask with a little kick in my step,my voice is full of curiosity, excitement rather than that sense of dread. 

“Just wait and see.” He stands tall, adjusting his jacket as we take a sudden left turn away from the park and down a street I rarely visit. As he leads the way I cling to him tightly, not wanting to part ways with him down here, an unknown area. 

We walked down for a few minutes before he stopped outside of an old building. It was one of the few remaining from the Tudor era, the others had been converted into flats, some into shops that shut down over a year ago, but this seems to still remain. “This?” I ask, the enthusiasm fading from my voice into pure confusion. 

He simply nods as he opens the thick wooden door, his arm separating from mine as he does. As it hangs wide open he awaits my company in the hallway. From here I can see him looking up and around, mouth hanging open in surprise at the sight of it. “You gotta see this.” He calls out to me as I hesitantly stand at the entrance as I fear my nightmares about these buildings are going to come true. 

Shutting it all out I take a deep breath, I wipe my clammy palms across my jeans and step inside. Keeping my head down I can hear my own footsteps echo upwards, and as I find his feet I start to lift my head until I meet the eyes of the one person I need. He motions for me to look around and slowly I take a step away from him and examine where we are. 

All around us it is open, the old floorboards remain dull, but the walls are decorated with sheet music. Some paintings remain hung along the staircase, but other than that it is furnished. A furnished home. Glancing around I pinpoint the decor I learnt about as a child, the memories of Henry VIII spring to mind and the attire I wished to have worn. “This is beautiful.” I whisper between us, but no sound can be neglected in here. 

“Yeah,” He whispers as he walks past me. “you are.” Dan mutters in my ear as he begins to walk up the stairs, leaving me stood still trying to realise what he just told me. As my brain begins to click together my reaction forms, heat floods my cheeks and my eyes bulge out of my head. Turning around he calls my name from halfway up the staircase, motioning for me to join him. 

As I walk to the bottom step he heads up without me, leaving me to walk under the grand chandelier that hangs above the creaking stairs. Once I’m at the top it remains an open space, the modern styled carpet contrasting the original features. Glancing around I let out a frustrated sigh as he remains out of sight, yet again. “Come on Dan,” My patience begins to wear thin as I hear him laugh and my fists clench. “where are you?!” Irritation rises in my tone as the stress only grows as the nightmares I had flood back. 

Behind me the floorboards creak, this time he calls my name in a gentle tone, less of an excitable child. I remain still, focusing on the wall in front of me as it remains decorated with floral patterns, the swirls of the stems around the flower heads. His hand connects with mine, slowly pulling me backwards, closer into his arms. He begins to turn me around until I’m facing him, my hand intertwined with his. I can see him searching my eyes again, he is looking, checking for the fear that looms in them, never leaving. 

His left hand rises as he places it on my cheek, the ice in his fingertips warming at the touch of my burning cheek. Naturally I lean into it, lean into him as he mutters nonsense into the open space. “I want you to come and see this, there is something I want to show you, okay?” As he speaks he keeps eye contact with me, not once is there a flicker of anything harsh, no deep dishonest greys line the blue in his gaze. 

We stand still for a moment as he waits for me to respond, not wanting to force my hand here. After a minute I give in, I nod in response and his face has more a glow to it as he leads me into the room he was in before I got up here. Stepping inside all that sits in the room is a grand piano, the sort I’ve seen in films, in some of my most beloved films that I grew up with wondering if I’d ever have that kind of moment. But maybe, just maybe, this is it. 

I keep in the corner of the room as Dan wanders over, his hand brushing against the smooth curves as he becomes out of sight, hidden by the lid. Walking towards him I feel the glossy wood, how smooth it feels against my fingertips as I glance in to see the keys, the hammers and string remain still, all aligned in the same place. Passing the lid he sits before it, central on the matching stool as his feet are on the pedals, his hands resting on his lap as if he were waiting for something- waiting for me. 

“So, you play?” I ask quietly, feeling as if I am going to interrupt the silence around us as it remains so peaceful to be in, atmospheric even. He pats the spot next to him, shuffling across the velvet seat as dust rises, floating between us as he forcefully clears his throat. 

As I sit next to him he takes my hands in his, muttering my name. “I want you to know I really care about you,” It sounds like the start of a breakup I’ve known all too well, the one I lived through, but this time I don’t want to tear my hands from his and run off. Instead I want to stay, I want to gaze into his bright eyes for another second, more as long as I’m able to. “and I want you to hear this.” Yet it was gone too soon, his hands were no longer holding mine, instead they were on the keys of the piano and I stood up, giving him space. 

He began to play, slamming down onto the keys and it echoed around the room, around the house we are in. I can feel it in my bones, flowing through them like blood does in my veins. “Oh I feel overjoyed.” It was different, it was unexpected. In my mind I imagined something deep, overly masculine, but this was delicate, as light as a feather but as powerful as a lion. As he sang on it struck me harder, his fingers moved faster across the keys as he shut his eyes tightly, singing with more passion. “Words are all we have, we’ll be talking, we’ll be talking.” I smiled to myself as he remained so involved, him and the keys were becoming one in this moment. 

For too long, words were all we had to each other, they were our it and end all. Without our words, without the goodnights and the get well soons, without the meaningful remarks and entertaining stories I wonder what it would all be like. The horrid could have been without him in my life, without that first message I sent to a stranger, what could’ve been if he never replied. 

The more he sang and harmonised with himself, the more absorbed I became into it, but there was something about it, something familiar. “Oh I hear you calling in the dead of night.” He dragged each word out perfectly, it wasn’t painful to listen to, but I knew it, I knew this song. Looking at him with pure curiosity as his eyes remained out of view I wondered if I’ve met him before, if I’ve seen him somewhere and simply forgotten. 

As his harmonies went on, the life outshined the emptiness in the room. He played with more passion, the pain and love of it could be seen in the straining of his throat, how his jaw clenched and eased at different points. His hair began to fall forward, the temptation he had in between keys to push it back, but simply left it there. 

He began to slow down, the rhythm becoming more graceful. I knew the song was coming to an end, but the nagging feeling in the back of my mind would not part, I knew this song, I knew it, but I couldn’t pin it to one place, to a band, not even to him. “Oh I feel overjoyed.” His eyes opened and he turned his head towards me, locking his eyes on mine. The emotion was raw, it was genuine and encapsulated in the deep rich blue of his eyes, the depth was there, something I’ve never witnessed as he kept playing, finishing the song without a fault. “When you listen to my words.” He dragged the last few words out and in a single blink it rushed back to me. 

A few years ago, me and Dylan were in his car driving back from a visit to the lakes in the middle of winter. This song came on, I looked it up as I liked it, but he didn’t. I got a single glimpse at the band, at the name but it must’ve been blocked, forgotten in amongst all of the other memories that overwrote the bad. 

“It’s you.” I mutter to him and he turns away from the piano, facing me entirely. Getting myself on my feet I stand still, but I don’t dare turn away, look away from him. “Dan Smith?” Asking him my words do not echo, they remain between the two of us as if they know it’s personal, that it is not something to be ushered about between the furniture around the house. “You’re in that band, the French name.” It was coming back to me in pieces, snippets of memories from Myla and her ex, Matthew. He played some of their music, I liked it, I didn’t hate it. Yet once they broke up I forgot about it. It was just shovelled away under the dirt in my mind, waiting to be resurrected. 

He stands up and I cross my arms across my chest, unsure what to think or how to react. A small sigh sounds from beneath his breath as I focus on the floral design rather than the emotions that pour from his eyes, the care that I wonder about now. “Bastille.” A single name, a single date in history that I never got to learn about, but I know it. It’s a word within my vocabulary, even if it has never been used or spoken from my lips in years, it is known. “Please,” I can hear the emotion rise in his voice, the struggle to get words out with ease as I turn my body away from his, my arms still tightly crossed. “are you upset?” 

Mentally I heard myself scoff, the irrational yells begin. But physically I remain silent, unsure how to react. I remain quiet as I allow my mind to think, stir up answers, any possible response. “Why didn’t you tell me?” A simple question with a million answers and reactions. 

“I was worried it would taint us.” Us. Not just me and him, but an us. I glance over my shoulder as I see him behind me, his shoulders brought forward, his fingers fiddling with the loose threads on his jacket, hair still hanging down. “If you knew I was known that much I thought it would be gone, I would just be a show for you, a figure of fame or some shit like that.” 

“You really think so little of me?” I pipe up, wanting to hear his answer to that. 

“No,” He steps forward, the floorboards creak. “never. You mean too much to me, so much that I couldn’t lose you that way. It’s alright for me, I’m just me in the band, but bringing someone into that it is mad.” As he explains I can visualize it, the fans, the hate, the concern that would wear him down. “I care too much about you to see you ever get hurt.” 

Quickly I turn on my heels and face him, pain etched in his expression mirroring my own. “I, I don’t want to lose you Dan.” I shake my head as the tears rise, the emotions beginning to overflow. Taking a deep shaky breath I swallow the thick lump that rises in my throat, “I, I,” The sob sounds from me without consent and I take the final step into his arms, wrapping my arms tightly around him and bury my head into the crook of his neck. 

My shoulders shake with too much force, rising and falling until he begins to speak, whispering above my silent sobs. Sobbing silently is something we all learn, as children we cry, we scream for attention. Yet as adults we reframe that, we hide it away and just let our hearts ache and suffer the agony instead, keep it bottled up until we burst. “When I saw you the other day for the first time, I thought I wondered if I’d made a mistake.” He whispers as his hand glides up and down my back. “I wondered if I wasn’t good enough for you, that you would not like me, or that I wouldn’t like you as much as I had believed. But,” A soft chuckle sounded from him, I can feel him smiling. “the second I saw you, when you turned around and slowly eased into it I knew,” Lifting my head up I sniff as I focus on his eyes, the intensity never faltering. “I knew I hadn’t made a mistake at all.” 

Both of us began to flicker from feature to feature, he opened his mouth to speak, but I simply shook my head and leaned closer. We both knew it was right, it was what we want, what we’ve both wanted for so long but have been too afraid to admit it. My lips were on his with such a force it was nothing like a kiss with Dylan, this had passion, it has fire burning through it. I can feel the last of my tears mix in adding a salty bitter element into the sweetness of his lips against mine. As we pull away, slightly breathless I can’t stop the small laugh escaping my lips. “Play something else.” I whisper into his lips, kissing him lightly and before he has the chance to respond I pull away, waiting for him to join me at the piano. 

He pushes his hair back, taking an uneasy step backwards as rose tints his cheeks and sits before the piano. “This one is called Oblivion.” I lean against the edge of the piano, simply admiring him as he plays, as he puts the energy, the life that flows in his veins into each lyric and note. I watch in awe, wondering how for a single second this happened, how words on a screen formed a genuine connection. 

part six  /seven

[hundredbillionbottles]

Just Chugging Along

A new coffee shop opened in Nailsea while I was away, replacing a pub which I had never been in and which was always skipped on even the biggest of pub crawls. I met Daisy there yesterday. Daisy is a girl in the school year below mine, just finished her A Levels, who is going to Colombia in January, enrolled in the same Gap Student Programme as I finished about a month and a half ago. She wanted to ask some questions about the job, the country, the culture, and I found myself almost self-indulgently spewing out any relevant information that popped into my head, rarely pausing to take breath. It felt good to rant so gleefully about my time away, instinctively babbling out advice and recommendations, having an answer to every question that she asked and seeing the nerves and excitement build in her as the conversation went on. It was like a confirmation that it had indeed happened, that I hadn’t just imagined or dreamed it; it was real and I loved it enough to want someone else to love it too.

In the nigh-on-month I’ve been home, the coffee shop is the only thing in Nailsea that appears to be new. A couple of shops and business ventures finding their feet in the town centre in January had ran out of legs by July it would seem, but everything else is basically the same; the same faces are scattered round The Moorend Spout on quiz night; the usually interchangeable neighbours in the house next to mine look as if they are the same; the buses are so late that they’re technically early in proximity to the next one, and the wind blows the first days of August silly and cold. Spoons is dead on weeknights and rammed on Friday and Saturday, full of the local football heroes, the ‘hands-on’ figures of the community, the hard-workers, the pre-drinkers, the students back from uni (usually grouped together with the pre-drinkers), and a small congregation of twats in the corner. And in the morning we all step outside to the same smell of horse shit and weed, the latter of which was so strong this past week that it actually made headlines in the North Somerset Times. But amidst all the similarities, I feel the comforting pass of time through every conversation I have. My friends for the most part are happier, more grounded in the people they are and want to be and firmly on their paths to achieve that. Nearly everyone I bump into has something to show for the past half-a-year; Ellie finished her first year at university with a first; Cop’s started designing and printing his own clothes; I haven’t seen Cara yet but she finished her A Levels as is currently blessing the States with her ridiculousness; I saw my old work-friend Genevieve in a play devised by her and her theatre company, whose existence I only knew of beforehand through snippets of conversation over early morning mass sandwich production. Hell, to be fair to them, the twats in the corner at spoons have progressed in some way, in that they’re into harder drugs now. So although the town itself is as still as it’s always been, I’ve returned in exciting times. I can feel everyone starting to get into their stride, transforming from school friends into real people.

I had a fantastic time in the States. I loved travelling, or rather vacationing alone, making my own spontaneous plans each day and meeting several other travellers whom I’d met the night before for breakfast. I drank malts with a couple from Brighton in Atlanta, I ate fried chicken with biscuits and gravy with a guy from London in Asheville, I sat at the counter in a roadside diner and chatted with the waitress and an older gentleman next to me about how ‘things ain’t how they used to be no more’. I went back to the same diner the next day and the same waitress (also named Alex) asked if I wanted ‘the usual’. From Asheville, I went on a 3-day hike up in the Smokey Mountains and saw a sunset atop Gregory Bald, the awe-striking beauty of which I thought could only exist in Google Images, with all the orange and purple oozing into the clouds and the steam rising from between the slumbering peaks and valleys. I saw 3 members of B.B. King’s band perform in Nashville and, in Memphis, stood in the spot where Elvis Presley first recorded and sat at the piano that he, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis all crowded round in 1956. That day also happened to be the 4th of July; the rain had washed out the already deserted streets of Downtown Memphis, and I couldn’t foresee watching fireworks in the lashing rain at a place literally named Mud Island being any fun, so I watched the festivities from the balcony of the Airbnb with Aisha and Tom, two other lodgers I had just met who were roadtripping their way to New Orleans. Once satisfied that the last red, white and/or blue firework had burst, we watched ‘The Nightman Cometh’ musical episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

On the night I got back I hugged my Mum very tightly and went out to see my friends at the place where all roads lead to: Ringers. I walked there leisurely, like I’d never been gone, not having to even think about where I was going and what were the best roads to take. Ellie was waiting outside for me and like me she’d changed her hair to blonde, then Jess came, then Harvey appeared and sprang straight into the tale of how he got stuck in a door in the London Underground earlier that day, then Joe and Charlie came, then Cop, then Chris. All these faces I knew as well as the route to the pub came round the corner and exchanged grins with mine like a reunion episode of some sitcom that’d been off the air for years, or like that really lame scene at the end of The Lord Of The Rings. The more people who showed up, the more I melted back into the familiar flow or banter and inside jokes, so naturally and so easily, as if the night were a record that someone had taken the needle off of 6 months ago and had just put back down. In the days that followed I caught everyone up on what I had done and where I’d been and who I’d met, and in the weeks that followed I came to feel completely reintegrated into the ordinary Somerset Summer daze, crashing out on Golden Valley field, binge watching some TV show when the rain comes, turning up late for every social outing and crushing cans of cider in the garden of whoever’s been kind enough to offer it.

With every new day, everything feels more normal and Colombia feels a little further away. And as bliss as coming home has been, how much it came at exactly the right time, there are things and people that should be here but aren’t here and which Nailsea could never recreate. I think about my housemates from Bogotá every day. Those thoughts manifest in things as little as songs on the radio that I think they’d like or in grand visions of them bursting through the Spoons doors as part of some massively extravagant and completely-out-of-their-way surprise visit. I went to a rave in Bristol with Dom and I’m going to Norwich this weekend to see George, but as I write I suspect that Stephen and Ela may be wrapping up their extended travels in Bolivia and arriving at their respective homes in Roanoke, Virginia and the British Virgin Islands, so very far away. I realised on a dragging Greyhound journey from Atlanta to Asheville, miles and miles away from anyone I even remotely knew, that from now on, no matter where I go, it’s a certainty that I will be far away from at least one person that I love. This fact is actually a good thing, the slow dispersion of loved ones is a symptom of everyone finding their way and achieving their goals; I accept this, but I am still entitled to a touch of sadness every day when I don’t say ‘good morning’ to my friends in the Gap House and every time I go to bed without saying ‘good night’.

The stars over Nailsea are better than I remember. They splash and scurry across our countryside sky in ways I never saw in the orange, cloudy haze of the Colombian night. Sometimes walking back late from Charlie’s or Jess’, I crane my neck up at them and wish that my friends across the sea, in the States, in Spain, in the BVI, could see them, and then I remember that they probably can, and that’s a nice thought. To borrow some words once spoken by a sleepy, traffic-frustrated Stephen, life is ‘just chugging along’ everywhere, and everyone will keep achieving things and developing themselves and I’ll just be so proud of them all. 

Be proud of what you’ve done so far this year, and if you feel like you haven’t done much then there’s still a lot of time left in it for you to change that.