His body hurts. His lungs hurt. His back hurts but for the life of him, he can’t stop. Because that’s all it boils down to.
Bradley is alive.
He’s a little worse for wear, a little bent and bruised. He has a broken rib and messed up right shoulder. A mild concussion and temporary hearing loss in his left ear.
But Bradley’s alive.
His heart slams in his chest as he tries to keep his hands where Jake pressed them against the shitty headboard on the carrier. Bradley’s head falls back as Jake’s body slides down again on his cock. Hands on Bradley’s body, desperate and grabby, like Jake isn’t going to get another time.
Or is it that he thought he wasn’t going to get another time?
Bradley digs his heels into the mattress and rocks his hips up. It’s almost too pornographic for the moment. The wet sound of bodies colliding almost violently with broken breaths and moans to fill in the gaps.
Bradley feels his toes curl as Jake slides back down. The tight wet heat on his cock makes every once of Bradley tremble as he forces his eyes open.
Jake looks unreal.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
This came out when I was a bright and young 16 years old. I still love Mary Chapin Carpenter's 10,000 Miles as a result. In fact, I still love this movie.
While we're all ranting about our music choices (thank you Spotify), here's my mini-dissertation on the saddest songs ever, in no particular order:
10,000 Miles, Mary Chapin Carpenter. "If I had a friend/all on this earth/you've been a friend to me." Nine-year-old me knew this song was devastating watching Fly Away Home, and it's EVEN MORE SO NOW. The yearning and resignation and desperation and grief and love and the vocals and the piano and AAAGGGHHH
Seed Song, the Mountain Goats. "When the man with the seed catalogs/darkened our door/we sent him away." This song chronicles the tale of some people who have endured hard times for so long they've forgotten how to plan, or even to hope, for good things to come, and that is. A lot to unpack.
So Big, So Small, Dear Evan Hansen. "I knew I'd come up short a million different ways/and I did/and I do/and I will." This song is comforting and touching and heartbreaking in so many ways, but I'm always punched in the gut with how, through no fault of her own, Evan's mom has failed him in some ways, and despite her best intentions, his hurt is real and won't necessarily stop, but there is an unrelenting love there.
Michael in the Bathroom, Be More Chill. "All you know about me is my name/Awesome party, I'm so glad I came." I don't know or understand this whole musical, seems a little weird, but Michael is having an absolutely painful mental breakdown at a party, and it's awful to be trapped inside your own head while everyone else is having a good time.
You Are a Memory, Message to Bears. There isn't a lot of lyrics to work with, but the music is...a Lot™️.
America became our museum on an epic road trip across the country.
Over at Medium, I’ve written a few reflections about our travels this summer.
Inching up the icy trail, we were acutely aware there were no railings to grasp if we slipped toward the snow-crusted mountainside. Fortunately, we arrived intact. There, in Wyoming’s Bighorn National Forest, we contemplated the ancient stones of the Medicine Wheel. Looking out from the Wheel, we were dazzled; the view was like being on top of the world. Looking into the Wheel, we were humbled by the knowledge that indigenous peoples have trekked to this spiritual site for thousands of years.
Heat surpassed 102°F as clouds of dust stirred around our shoes. Cracked foundations and two crumbling pillars are the last remnants of the World War II-era Dalton Wells concentration camp for Japanese Americans. The sunbaked site in Moab, Utah, was otherwise marked only by a small plaque. It read in part: “May this sad, low point in the history of our democracy never be forgotten, in the hope that it will never happen again.”
The gazebo seen in the infamous security video has been moved to a memorial in Chicago, Illinois. Nonetheless, this was undoubtedly the Cudell Recreation Center in Cleveland, Ohio. We stopped by and found adults relaxing and children having fun. The day was sunny and bright, and it almost seemed inconceivable that 12-year-old Tamir Rice was murdered here in broad daylight by a cop.
Water pounded us hard enough to soak under our ponchos at the Hurricane Deck halfway down New York’s Niagara Falls. Water had also pounded Percival, Iowa, where we witnessed acres of farmland still flooded after the Missouri River’s catastrophic overflows. In Butte, Montana, we surveyed the brilliant green waters of the Berkeley Pit, one of the most polluted Superfund sites. Old Faithful didn’t erupt with precision like the Bellagio’s fountains in Las Vegas, but it was more impressive. Michigan’s Flint River seemed as tranquil as the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool, belying the river’s role in the still-unresolved water crisis.
In Yellowstone, the world’s first national park, a wild bison rolled its eyes and then ignored us. In Nebraska, at the world’s largest zoo, a captive lioness did the same. Off the coast of Maine, a finback whale looked like maybe it was thinking about it.
We saw all this and more.
The rest is at Medium, which estimates it’s a 7-minute read.
