sunshine after the sun

Jess rolls back onto his stomach and starts to write. He feels clumsy, it’s probably redundant and baby-soft, but something resonates: Speaking has always felt like a second language to him. He can’t tell Rory a thing, even when he tells her things. He can’t really explain to Lane why Marquee Moon makes him shut up and close his eyes and ooze around his heart, though he tries. He can’t say an honest sentence to Luke all the way through, God fucking forbid that, he has all the words primed and ready and they just won’t come out. This is different. Squeaking mechanical pencil to paper, and Jess’s brain is connected to his arm to his hand to eternity or whatever, it sounds stupid as he thinks it but he feels like he sees himself taking shape as the sheet fills, then the next, then the next. He skims his thumb along the page edges, then flips them fast, and the body moves. Jess mumbles to himself, holding the journal to his chest, “Boy, there’s a poet in you, after all.”