i started writing a fic based off we love poetry and im starting to be reminded of the picture of dorian gray as i write it. so. anyway would you guys read this
(fyi this is the first like, 700 words or so of the first chapter, and its pretty rough rn cuz i wrote it a lil quickly and havent read over it yet. but would you?)
The paintings were the embodiment of chaos.
They sat scattered throughout the room, reds and browns mixing together into images of smudged figures reaching for each other, fingers close but faces destroyed in fits of tears. Percy’s fingers, palms, wrists were stained with the matter of his madness.
He wished Franklin were here. His doe-brown hair slicked back with wax, the one curl he couldn’t always keep under control falling into his face, the sight of Franklin’s fingernails scraping along his face as he pushed the lock away. His pale lips, breaking into a hint of a smile as Percy read his latest poem in the hopes that Franklin could see who it was for. Percy’s brain was breaking under the weight of all these fantasies– his butler’s polished shoes; the creases in his pant legs as he moved; his fingers fidgeting behind his back; his three vests he rotated, all in dire need of a pocketwatch (Percy wanted to make him one from the very marrow of his bones and hold it out to Franklin as if he would even want it); the Adam’s apple in his neck bobbing as he swallowed…
God, Percy was psychotic. He was losing his grip on reality. Men didn’t love other men like this. Men weren’t driven wild to the point of falling to their knees in front of canvasses full of portrayals of another man being soft. Men didn’t lie awake in peril, sheets thrown away and cotton shirts unbuttoned until the cold breeze of London froze them nearly to death. Men didn’t throw open their windows for air and vomit into porcelain toilets because the very thought of another made them sick with wonder.
He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, a pale red flooding Percy’s vision as his eyelids pressed in.
i told the stars about you, lover, ofÂ
the way you pour my tea and
the way you tread the floor like you are going to bruise itÂ
is it appropriate to call you lover?
i have never felt your lips on a winter’s day, or
seen the sunlight as it travels ninety-three million miles
to wake you in the morning. i am not allowed
to splash you with lakewater or trace the shape of your chest. i am not allowed
to give you butterfly kisses or bury my face into your collarbones.
i told the stars about you, and they stayed silent–
they stayed up with God, in a place i wish we could be.
i am unholy even in heaven. i wish–
Oh, lord, no. That was terrible. The rhythm was wrong, the words not sounding right, the breaks not quite correct. It was ghastly.
Percy was not a good enough poet for Franklin. He was not a good enough poet for anybody, really– he didn’t understand why the newspapers ate him up like wolves. He just wanted somebody to trace the edges of the vowels, to sound out each verb like it was a holy thing, to press a kiss into his neck every time a line made them smile. He wanted somebody to see his art, both of words and of paint, for what it truly was– and he wanted them alone to see it.
Percy didn’t care for the public. He only served them because it was what kept Franklin there.
He dropped to the floor with a sigh, brick digging into his back as he lay against the wall. He stared to his left, where a half-finished portrait of his butler, asleep in Percy’s sheets as the moonlight fell over his lovely mussed hair and stunning, smooth jawline. It was never going to be finished. It was too painful, these images that consumed his mind. The finished ones were ones that depicted strangers, strangers like Percy. Sometimes he could finish one of himself, but he always ended up rubbing out the face, or the product was the poet bent over, away from the viewer in some sort of terrible pain.
Oh, how he wished Franklin were here. But, all at the same time, Percy wished he were far away so he would never have to look into the eyes of his peril again.
No amount of art in the world could heal the sickness that plagued him.
Percy slowly rose to his feet, shaking in his bare feet, and stepped in the chaos of spilled paint and snapped paintbrushes as he trudged to the door. He was weighed down like Atlas, all the force of the sky digging into his shoulder blades as he slowly pushed open the door and walked the many flights of stairs and maze of corridors back to his bedroom.
The poet fell into his bed, and lay awake staring at Vega until the sun broke the east.
so anyway theres my terrible first bit. but if i edited it and dropped some more of it...
would you guys read it?
yes
no
other (reblog, comment, or message me)
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