goobertonation

A purple hue settles over his room, heavy, unmoving. His back is turned away, head pressed against the wall as if he’s trying to disappear into it. Smoke lingers in the air, slow, weightless, spirals curling like something that never leaves. It’s filled with loneliness, the feeling of growing old, tired, the kind of tired that doesn’t just come from countless sleepless nights, but from living, simply existing. Tired from walking on the road, where you’re always being told what you can and can’t do… how you should and shouldn’t feel.

The shower is still running in the bathroom, but Mark sits there, bare, stripped of more than just pieces of clothing. Only leaving the outline of himself behind. The room emptied of what there once was, what there once used to be.

The purple light clings to his body, illuminating on his skin, soft, faded, like he’s suspended in a moment that refuses to end. Like he’s stuck in space, as if the gravity itself has abandoned him, left him wandering into the endless nothingess. Time loosens around him, seconds no longer pass, they only just linger, or atleast that’s what it feels like. They linger, refusing to carry him forward. He floats beyond the pull of the living world, befond its warmth and motion. With nothing to grasp, no orbit to return to, no gravity strong enough to call him home. Even his breath is shallow, struggling to keep pace with the distand world that still turns without him

He exhales slowly, gazing through the smoke that blurs the edges of the room. Maybe for a second, he wonders if it would be easier to let everything dissolve with it, fade within the purple smoke. Let the walls, the noise, the years ahead disappear into that same quiet haze.

You’re almost afraid to speak, too careful even with your breathing, scared that even the tiniest bit of noise might shatter him. You see him balancing on something thin, something fragile and one wrong movement will send him crashing.

But maybe crashing is what he needs.

What if the silence is doing more damage than any noise ever could.

Your fingers twitch at your side. You want to reach out. To say something, anything really, to pull him back into the room, back into himself.

Because the way he sits there doesn’t look like rest, it looks like disappearance, he looks like he’s about to fade away, become one with the smoke that’s coiled around him. Consuming him, seeping into his lungs, untill he is no longer separate from it, but the part of a motionless, airless world.

So you reach for him, your hand touching his bare back…real, solid, still here.

“Mark…”

He turns his head to you almost at the speed of light, the motion too sudden for him, like you’ve broken through whatever quiet void he had sunk into. His eyes already spilling over, watering at the sight of somebody, the sight of you.

Before you can say anything else, he folds into you, his face pressing hard into your abdomen as if it’s the only place left that still feels real.

Instinctively you gather him, arms curving around his head, holding him close, as hard as you can. Embracing him, keeping him from slipping any further into the silent darkness.

“Talk to me…”

He shakes his head against you, as if the words are stuck somewhere too deep. His hold tightens on you, fingers pressing into your sides, while yours slightly comb through his wet hair. His breath is uneven against you, shaky, unstable, like every inhale costs him something.

“I don’t know what I’m doing…” he says finally, the words barely audible. “I don’t..”

And the rest collapses into a sob, torn from his throat before he can even say anything else.

You don’t interrupt, your hand is steadily moving over his hair, while your own tears gather, not daring to spill, as if even they are afraid to disturb the fragile space holding him together.

“I thought I knew what I wanted” he chokes on his words breaking apart between breaths. “Now it all feels so uncertain. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”

Your chest tightens at his words, now unable to speak, unable to give comfort your own lover.

“I ruined everything…” You feel it in the way he clings to you. It’s not just grief or regret, but fear. The kind of fear that comes from standing at the edge of something unknown, something dark, something that has never been explored before.

“I wake up and I don’t even know what I’m waking up for. I thought I knew who I was supposed to be, and now I just keep thinking that if I had done something differently…”

You hear yourself sniffle, still not letting your tears fall before speaking. “You don’t have to figure everything out right now, and certainly not alone.”

He lets out a weak sound, between a sob and a laugh. “Everyone else knows what they’re doing, and I’m just stuck, it feels like I’m already too late.”

“You’re not late Mark. You’re just in the part where no one talks about. You’re in the part where everything falls apart before something else can exist.”

He pulls back just enough to look at you, though he can barely see through his misty, tear stained eyes. “What if there isn’t anything after this?” he wants to believe your words, he just doesn’t know how.

“it’s just like space… Nothing just appears whole. Planets don’t start as planets, they begin as scattered dust, broken pieces of nothingness, drifting without shape, without direction. And then, somehow gravity finds them, and pulls everything in. Pulls in every lost, every shattered part untill something new begins to form. Not what it was before, but something that still can exist, something that can still be.”

Your thumb brushes under his eye, catching a tear before it paints his face once more. He blinks slowly, taking your every word in, settling somewhere deep, where he hasn’t let anything reach in a long time.  “What if I stay like the dust? What if nothing ever pulls it together?”

“Then you wait, don’t force it into something it’s not ready to be.”

“I don’t know how to wait without feeling like I’m wasting everything.”

“You’re not wasting anything, Mark. You’re still here, you’re still feeling it, which means something is already moving, even if you can’t see it yet.”

The room falls quiet again. He exhales slowly, like he’s learning how to breathe again. It’s silent for a while, except for the distant sound of the shower running. His forehead rests lightly against you now, no longer collapsing.

“Then maybe I’ll try to hold on, even if I don’t know what I’m becoming yet”

“you don’t have to become anything tonight,” you whisper.

“If I’m just dust right now, then you’re the only thing that ever felt like gravity to me.”  His thumb brushes over your knuckles, slow, lingering, like he’s memorizing every detail. “and if this is all I get… if this is as far as I go, I’m glad it’s you who made me feel like I was more than just pieces of dust…because, loving you was the only time I ever felt whole.”

It’s not certainty. Not clarity, but something gentler, something that holds or has a grip.

The room settles into a fragile quietness, the kind that doesn’t feel empty just yet. You stay like that for some time, maybe five, maybe ten, maybe thirty minutes, maybe even longer as the time stretches strangely around you. Your hands still moving through his hair, slower now, more absentminded, like your body remembers the motion, even as your thoughts drift somewhere else, as his grip loosens little by little, still not fully pulling away.

“I’m here, not going anywhere.” You whisper. “Let me be your gravity, let me hold you like this.”

His breaths have stilled, you just hold him closer, your chin resting lightly against the top of his head.

“you’re going to be okay…”

Your fingers trace his neck, over his shoulder, feeling the shape of him, the silhouette of his body.

"everything is gonna be fine…" you murmur, softer now, like you’re speaking into something that might still hear you.

"You’re cold." You say, only now noticing his bodily temperature, your hand stills for a second before you move it again, a little more deliberate now, rubbing lightly along his arm, like you’re trying to coax the heat back into him.

Your movements slow. Not stopping… just softer now, more careful.

Silence answers you. Not heavy, not loud.

You press your face into his hair, breathing him in, holding him tighter than before, like you’re afraid he might slip away even now.

the room doesn’t change.

The shower keeps running. The smoke still hangs in the air.

And you’re the only one left moving.

Your hand comes up to cradle the back of his head again, holding him exactly where he is, like you can preserve this moment, like if you don’t let go, neither will he.

"…I told you I’d stay," you whisper, voice breaking just slightly now.

You just hold him.

A purple hue settles over his room, heavy, unmoving. His back is turned away, head pressed against the wall as if he’s trying to disappear into it. Smoke lingers in the air, slow, weightless, spirals curling like something that never leaves. It’s filled with loneliness, the feeling of growing old, tired, the kind of tired that doesn’t just come from countless sleepless nights, but from living, simply existing. Tired from walking on the road, where you’re always being told what you can and can’t do… how you should and shouldn’t feel.

The shower is still running in the bathroom, but Mark sits there, bare, stripped of more than just pieces of clothing. Only leaving the outline of himself behind. The room emptied of what there once was, what there once used to be.

The purple light clings to his body, illuminating on his skin, soft, faded, like he’s suspended in a moment that refuses to end. Like he’s stuck in space, as if the gravity itself has abandoned him, left him wandering into the endless nothingess. Time loosens around him, seconds no longer pass, they only just linger, or atleast that’s what it feels like. They linger, refusing to carry him forward. He floats beyond the pull of the living world, befond its warmth and motion. With nothing to grasp, no orbit to return to, no gravity strong enough to call him home. Even his breath is shallow, struggling to keep pace with the distand world that still turns without him

He exhales slowly, gazing through the smoke that blurs the edges of the room. Maybe for a second, he wonders if it would be easier to let everything dissolve with it, fade within the purple smoke. Let the walls, the noise, the years ahead disappear into that same quiet haze.

You’re almost afraid to speak, too careful even with your breathing, scared that even the tiniest bit of noise might shatter him. You see him balancing on something thin, something fragile and one wrong movement will send him crashing.

But maybe crashing is what he needs.

What if the silence is doing more damage than any noise ever could.

Your fingers twitch at your side. You want to reach out. To say something, anything really, to pull him back into the room, back into himself.

Because the way he sits there doesn’t look like rest, it looks like disappearance, he looks like he’s about to fade away, become one with the smoke that’s coiled around him. Consuming him, seeping into his lungs, untill he is no longer separate from it, but the part of a motionless, airless world.

So you reach for him, your hand touching his bare back…real, solid, still here.

“Mark…”

He turns his head to you almost at the speed of light, the motion too sudden for him, like you’ve broken through whatever quiet void he had sunk into. His eyes already spilling over, watering at the sight of somebody, the sight of you.

Before you can say anything else, he folds into you, his face pressing hard into your abdomen as if it’s the only place left that still feels real.

Instinctively you gather him, arms curving around his head, holding him close, as hard as you can. Embracing him, keeping him from slipping any further into the silent darkness.

“Talk to me…”

He shakes his head against you, as if the words are stuck somewhere too deep. His hold tightens on you, fingers pressing into your sides, while yours slightly comb through his wet hair. His breath is uneven against you, shaky, unstable, like every inhale costs him something.

“I don’t know what I’m doing…” he says finally, the words barely audible. “I don’t..”

And the rest collapses into a sob, torn from his throat before he can even say anything else.

You don’t interrupt, your hand is steadily moving over his hair, while your own tears gather, not daring to spill, as if even they are afraid to disturb the fragile space holding him together.

“I thought I knew what I wanted” he chokes on his words breaking apart between breaths. “Now it all feels so uncertain. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”

Your chest tightens at his words, now unable to speak, unable to give comfort your own lover.

“I ruined everything…” You feel it in the way he clings to you. It’s not just grief or regret, but fear. The kind of fear that comes from standing at the edge of something unknown, something dark, something that has never been explored before.

“I wake up and I don’t even know what I’m waking up for. I thought I knew who I was supposed to be, and now I just keep thinking that if I had done something differently…”

You hear yourself sniffle, still not letting your tears fall before speaking. “You don’t have to figure everything out right now, and certainly not alone.”

He lets out a weak sound, between a sob and a laugh. “Everyone else knows what they’re doing, and I’m just stuck, it feels like I’m already too late.”

“You’re not late Mark. You’re just in the part where no one talks about. You’re in the part where everything falls apart before something else can exist.”

He pulls back just enough to look at you, though he can barely see through his misty, tear stained eyes. “What if there isn’t anything after this?” he wants to believe your words, he just doesn’t know how.

“it’s just like space… Nothing just appears whole. Planets don’t start as planets, they begin as scattered dust, broken pieces of nothingness, drifting without shape, without direction. And then, somehow gravity finds them, and pulls everything in. Pulls in every lost, every shattered part untill something new begins to form. Not what it was before, but something that still can exist, something that can still be.”

Your thumb brushes under his eye, catching a tear before it paints his face once more. He blinks slowly, taking your every word in, settling somewhere deep, where he hasn’t let anything reach in a long time.  “What if I stay like the dust? What if nothing ever pulls it together?”

“Then you wait, don’t force it into something it’s not ready to be.”

“I don’t know how to wait without feeling like I’m wasting everything.”

“You’re not wasting anything, Mark. You’re still here, you’re still feeling it, which means something is already moving, even if you can’t see it yet.”

The room falls quiet again. He exhales slowly, like he’s learning how to breathe again. It’s silent for a while, except for the distant sound of the shower running. His forehead rests lightly against you now, no longer collapsing.

“Then maybe I’ll try to hold on, even if I don’t know what I’m becoming yet”

“you don’t have to become anything tonight,” you whisper.

“If I’m just dust right now, then you’re the only thing that ever felt like gravity to me.”  His thumb brushes over your knuckles, slow, lingering, like he’s memorizing every detail. “and if this is all I get… if this is as far as I go, I’m glad it’s you who made me feel like I was more than just pieces of dust…because, loving you was the only time I ever felt whole.”

It’s not certainty. Not clarity, but something gentler, something that holds or has a grip.

The room settles into a fragile quietness, the kind that doesn’t feel empty just yet. You stay like that for some time, maybe five, maybe ten, maybe thirty minutes, maybe even longer as the time stretches strangely around you. Your hands still moving through his hair, slower now, more absentminded, like your body remembers the motion, even as your thoughts drift somewhere else, as his grip loosens little by little, still not fully pulling away.

“I’m here, not going anywhere.” You whisper. “Let me be your gravity, let me hold you like this.”

His breaths have stilled, you just hold him closer, your chin resting lightly against the top of his head.

“you’re going to be okay…”

Your fingers trace his neck, over his shoulder, feeling the shape of him, the silhouette of his body.

"everything is gonna be fine…" you murmur, softer now, like you’re speaking into something that might still hear you.

"You’re cold." You say, only now noticing his bodily temperature, your hand stills for a second before you move it again, a little more deliberate now, rubbing lightly along his arm, like you’re trying to coax the heat back into him.

Your movements slow. Not stopping… just softer now, more careful.

Silence answers you. Not heavy, not loud.

You press your face into his hair, breathing him in, holding him tighter than before, like you’re afraid he might slip away even now.

the room doesn’t change.

The shower keeps running. The smoke still hangs in the air.

And you’re the only one left moving.

Your hand comes up to cradle the back of his head again, holding him exactly where he is, like you can preserve this moment, like if you don’t let go, neither will he.

"…I told you I’d stay," you whisper, voice breaking just slightly now.

You just hold him.

A purple hue settles over his room, heavy, unmoving. His back is turned away, head pressed against the wall as if he’s trying to disappear into it. Smoke lingers in the air, slow, weightless, spirals curling like something that never leaves. It’s filled with loneliness, the feeling of growing old, tired, the kind of tired that doesn’t just come from countless sleepless nights, but from living, simply existing. Tired from walking on the road, where you’re always being told what you can and can’t do… how you should and shouldn’t feel.

The shower is still running in the bathroom, but Mark sits there, bare, stripped of more than just pieces of clothing. Only leaving the outline of himself behind. The room emptied of what there once was, what there once used to be.

The purple light clings to his body, illuminating on his skin, soft, faded, like he’s suspended in a moment that refuses to end. Like he’s stuck in space, as if the gravity itself has abandoned him, left him wandering into the endless nothingess. Time loosens around him, seconds no longer pass, they only just linger, or atleast that’s what it feels like. They linger, refusing to carry him forward. He floats beyond the pull of the living world, befond its warmth and motion. With nothing to grasp, no orbit to return to, no gravity strong enough to call him home. Even his breath is shallow, struggling to keep pace with the distand world that still turns without him

He exhales slowly, gazing through the smoke that blurs the edges of the room. Maybe for a second, he wonders if it would be easier to let everything dissolve with it, fade within the purple smoke. Let the walls, the noise, the years ahead disappear into that same quiet haze.

You’re almost afraid to speak, too careful even with your breathing, scared that even the tiniest bit of noise might shatter him. You see him balancing on something thin, something fragile and one wrong movement will send him crashing.

But maybe crashing is what he needs.

What if the silence is doing more damage than any noise ever could.

Your fingers twitch at your side. You want to reach out. To say something, anything really, to pull him back into the room, back into himself.

Because the way he sits there doesn’t look like rest, it looks like disappearance, he looks like he’s about to fade away, become one with the smoke that’s coiled around him. Consuming him, seeping into his lungs, untill he is no longer separate from it, but the part of a motionless, airless world.

So you reach for him, your hand touching his bare back…real, solid, still here.

“Mark…”

He turns his head to you almost at the speed of light, the motion too sudden for him, like you’ve broken through whatever quiet void he had sunk into. His eyes already spilling over, watering at the sight of somebody, the sight of you.

Before you can say anything else, he folds into you, his face pressing hard into your abdomen as if it’s the only place left that still feels real.

Instinctively you gather him, arms curving around his head, holding him close, as hard as you can. Embracing him, keeping him from slipping any further into the silent darkness.

“Talk to me…”

He shakes his head against you, as if the words are stuck somewhere too deep. His hold tightens on you, fingers pressing into your sides, while yours slightly comb through his wet hair. His breath is uneven against you, shaky, unstable, like every inhale costs him something.

“I don’t know what I’m doing…” he says finally, the words barely audible. “I don’t..”

And the rest collapses into a sob, torn from his throat before he can even say anything else.

You don’t interrupt, your hand is steadily moving over his hair, while your own tears gather, not daring to spill, as if even they are afraid to disturb the fragile space holding him together.

“I thought I knew what I wanted” he chokes on his words breaking apart between breaths. “Now it all feels so uncertain. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”

Your chest tightens at his words, now unable to speak, unable to give comfort your own lover.

“I ruined everything…” You feel it in the way he clings to you. It’s not just grief or regret, but fear. The kind of fear that comes from standing at the edge of something unknown, something dark, something that has never been explored before.

“I wake up and I don’t even know what I’m waking up for. I thought I knew who I was supposed to be, and now I just keep thinking that if I had done something differently…”

You hear yourself sniffle, still not letting your tears fall before speaking. “You don’t have to figure everything out right now, and certainly not alone.”

He lets out a weak sound, between a sob and a laugh. “Everyone else knows what they’re doing, and I’m just stuck, it feels like I’m already too late.”

“You’re not late Mark. You’re just in the part where no one talks about. You’re in the part where everything falls apart before something else can exist.”

He pulls back just enough to look at you, though he can barely see through his misty, tear stained eyes. “What if there isn’t anything after this?” he wants to believe your words, he just doesn’t know how.

“it’s just like space… Nothing just appears whole. Planets don’t start as planets, they begin as scattered dust, broken pieces of nothingness, drifting without shape, without direction. And then, somehow gravity finds them, and pulls everything in. Pulls in every lost, every shattered part untill something new begins to form. Not what it was before, but something that still can exist, something that can still be.”

Your thumb brushes under his eye, catching a tear before it paints his face once more. He blinks slowly, taking your every word in, settling somewhere deep, where he hasn’t let anything reach in a long time.  “What if I stay like the dust? What if nothing ever pulls it together?”

“Then you wait, don’t force it into something it’s not ready to be.”

“I don’t know how to wait without feeling like I’m wasting everything.”

“You’re not wasting anything, Mark. You’re still here, you’re still feeling it, which means something is already moving, even if you can’t see it yet.”

The room falls quiet again. He exhales slowly, like he’s learning how to breathe again. It’s silent for a while, except for the distant sound of the shower running. His forehead rests lightly against you now, no longer collapsing.

“Then maybe I’ll try to hold on, even if I don’t know what I’m becoming yet”

“you don’t have to become anything tonight,” you whisper.

“If I’m just dust right now, then you’re the only thing that ever felt like gravity to me.”  His thumb brushes over your knuckles, slow, lingering, like he’s memorizing every detail. “and if this is all I get… if this is as far as I go, I’m glad it’s you who made me feel like I was more than just pieces of dust…because, loving you was the only time I ever felt whole.”

It’s not certainty. Not clarity, but something gentler, something that holds or has a grip.

The room settles into a fragile quietness, the kind that doesn’t feel empty just yet. You stay like that for some time, maybe five, maybe ten, maybe thirty minutes, maybe even longer as the time stretches strangely around you. Your hands still moving through his hair, slower now, more absentminded, like your body remembers the motion, even as your thoughts drift somewhere else, as his grip loosens little by little, still not fully pulling away.

“I’m here, not going anywhere.” You whisper. “Let me be your gravity, let me hold you like this.”

His breaths have stilled, you just hold him closer, your chin resting lightly against the top of his head.

“you’re going to be okay…”

Your fingers trace his neck, over his shoulder, feeling the shape of him, the silhouette of his body.

"everything is gonna be fine…" you murmur, softer now, like you’re speaking into something that might still hear you.

"You’re cold." You say, only now noticing his bodily temperature, your hand stills for a second before you move it again, a little more deliberate now, rubbing lightly along his arm, like you’re trying to coax the heat back into him.

Your movements slow. Not stopping… just softer now, more careful.

Silence answers you. Not heavy, not loud.

You press your face into his hair, breathing him in, holding him tighter than before, like you’re afraid he might slip away even now.

the room doesn’t change.

The shower keeps running. The smoke still hangs in the air.

And you’re the only one left moving.

Your hand comes up to cradle the back of his head again, holding him exactly where he is, like you can preserve this moment, like if you don’t let go, neither will he.

"…I told you I’d stay," you whisper, voice breaking just slightly now.

You just hold him.