Emeraldine

SHANEWEEK | DAY 2: FAVORITE LOOK

This excerpt is not, in fact, from the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, which Lestat would have studied in his brief time at the monastery! It is taken from the poem "We Are Fields Before Each Other" by Daniel Ladinsky, who published a collection of poems called Love Poems From God in 2002, in which he writes poems under the persona of various philosophers, mystics, and religious figures. There's a whole section dedicated to Aquinas.

Now this excerpt is out there on the internet falsely attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, A LOT. Who can say if this is an error, or a deliberate bit of fun from the writers (the past and the present overlapping, rewriting one another, etc. - Lestat is speaking to a hallucination of his ten year old self after all). Either way, I'm pretty obsessed.

I'm including the rest of the poem below, for fun and context:

ANYWAY. Kevin is up on the rooftop and his lighter isn’t working, and out comes some hottish blond guy who starts smoking a cigarette looking over the barrier. Kevin contemplates asking blond guy for a light, but like, what if this guy is up here to off himself? He certainly looks capable, with the way he’s brooding (getting hotter every minute) and puffing that cigarette. But before Kevin can decide out comes another guy, this one with black hair, and this guy is more Kevin’s type so he’s definitely hot, and him and blondie start talking, and Kevin thinks that he better reveal himself now because like, it’ll be awkward if they see him staring, but black hair dude is obviously drunk and Kevin ALWAYS gets roped into taking care of the drunk friend— “SO WHAT THEN?” the black haired guy yells and Kevin goes eeek okay this is a couple queens having a fight probably two of the waiters from the reception Kevin will just make his exit quietly he does not need to get in the middle he’s got his own situationship blowing up his phone that he left in his violin case but then when blondie turns fully he sees that they’re in real formal wear, not waiter garb and not the shitty Sears tux Kevin wears for gigs. So these queens are having a spat, and Kevin realizes that they HAVE to be players, and now he’s frozen to the spot. “I go home in three days,” blondie says, and Kevin realizes he’s Eastern European, thinks that’s hot, but then wonders if that’s problematic to think, but then black hair hottie is holding out a hand for a handshake and Kevin almost laughs like okay gay, but OMG NOW THEY’RE KISSING and Kevin really needs new glasses, was that tongue omg— “we’re both in tuxedos out in public!” Aww black haired hottie’s voice cracked this is sad they must be like, lower level players or whatever, just glad to be here, struggling with being gay, maybe Kevin should help them—

“Hollander. See you next season.”

Hollander. Hollander. Kevin had been barely listening but isn’t that the guy they announced for one of the awards. Shit— are these queens a big deal?

So later, Kevin goes on Reddit and does a deep dive about Shane Hollander, Canadian phenom, Rookie of the Year, finding one forum where he poses the question. “Is Shane Hollander gay? I think I saw him with some guy!”

And two years later (no phone company, Kevin finally landed a full time orchestra job in LA) he gets ONE lone answer on otherwise deserted forum:

Shane's actually the one to accidentally reveal the timeline, when he says "I mean, if you average it out by the seven years where we only saw each other a few times a year and the four years we were long-distance, we're probably still behind most couples."

ilya is calling him just to hear his voice and shane is like ??? why are you calling me?? is everything okay? are you sad about your brother again?

ilya is sending nudes and shane is immediately deleting them and not acknowledging them because he’s scared of his phone getting hacked

finally when ilya comes to visit for the first time he’s like my shane ?? do you want to break up? and shane’s like no!!! never!!! tears are in his eyes. ‘why would i want to break up?!!!’ and ilya’s like well you never return my bids for attention….