sick voice- do you have more valeluca thoughts? from the locket-hair verse?
of course !!! continuation of this
The sickness isn’t Vale’s keen ever-present awareness of Luca, of the fine delicateness of his beauty, nor is it the way Vale bristles when someone remarks that he is prettier than Vale was at his age. That is not the sickness. If it’s just Vale alone then it’s not a sickness, it’s just a problem, is just something that needs to be managed. The sickness is when, like a loop being closed, he holds the smooth polished locket in his palm and it weighs heavy like a signed execution order, disproportionate. This is the sickness, when the sun changes position in the sky and this shadow extends to touch Luca too. A handkerchief wrapped around a stone is tossed into a lake, sinking to the bottom of Vale’s gut.
The sickness is Luca, golden and beautiful, his eyes searching for Vale’s in every crowded room. His gaze is nakedly proprietary in a way that makes the back of Vale’s neck prickle. The want is an open ended kind, a gate he thought could be pushed open and shut at will — albeit propped open more often than not these days.
Luca’s brilliant blue eyes light up when he locates Vale. The intimacy of his smile would offend God Himself. If the thought even occurs to Luca, he is unbothered by it. Perhaps Luca’s pointy chin stays raised because he has been unafraid from the moment he was born — and whose fault is that, a voice accuses. Who was the one wrapping their arms securely around Luca and raising him to the sky so that his little feet kicked at empty air, Luca laughing breathlessly like nothing — not even gravity could hurt him. His brazenness now as he holds Vale’s gaze despite their audience, despite God Himself watching — whose fault is that? Who put their body between Luca and the ground? Luca is old enough now to go out at night with his friends and come home smelling of alcohol and cigarette smoke and strangers’ sweat. He is old enough and his frame has filled out enough for him to lean against that creaky gate of Vale’s want and hold it open with just his weight.
Whose fault is all that? Increasingly, it has felt like there is nowhere for Vale to hide. He opens his eyes and Luca’s hungry stare follows him around the room like a bloodhound. He closes his eyes and he can see Luca perched on his kitchen bench, so familiar a sight that he can even picture Luca’s dark blue gym shorts bunched up around his golden thighs, like the devil reclining on that gate and lazily swinging it open and close with his foot. Whose fault is all that? And really, he still cannot blame Luca for any of this because he knows that all of it — all of this sickness, like that silver locket that rests in his palm and warms to the temperature of his skin, is his own damn fault.
