I wrote this a few weeks ago and I just realised I didn't upload it here? so here you go. Hope you like.
Modelling is art. And like all art, it forms a complex statement. One of raw and emotional integrity hiding behind a façade of increasing spuriousness. The idea that makeup has to be 'fake', that lighting up is 'fake', that dressing up is 'fake'. When in reality it's the most real thing in the world. Standing all alone in front of the flashing cameras, lies people bare, they are stripped back to their purest forms, injected self-confidence swarming through their blood as the smile wobbles and threatens to fall from their face. A personal thunderstorm. The flashing of the light, the echoing thunder of the heart, the thrashing of the rain as everything seems to grow distorted. And it never stops being a thunderstorm, the rain never stops thrashing and the lightning strikes continue to be as powerful, people just grow stronger, their skins thickening like tortoise shells; they learn to dance in the rain that they created.
It's easy to label. Easy to grab the pricing gun and the tiny stickers and poke at people with grubby fingers sissy, pretty boy, gay, no talent, rich from nothing, exploitation of genes, don't know how to work hard, Dan had heard it all before. People could never learn to see through the inked pages and see the thick skin that grew around the people, the true strength they held within them. The personal thunderstorm they could unleash.
Dan remembered his first time before the lightning. He remembered hands shaking like tremors in the ground, sweat beading on his forehead like raindrops gathering on leaves, and no be brave, big smile, he was in the real world. And it was scary as fuck. Dan liked it.
There were days when it was danger, and the fan was a whipping wind and then there was the day where the skies grew calmer.
Dan's eyes were off-centre. His smile too wide. His pose not firm enough. Laughter flowed from his lips, the lips that had bought him his house. It wasn't his fault. He was surrounded by models every day, surrounded by cheek bones, by eyes that shimmered like seas, with smiles like ribbons. But the man's black hair seemed to call to him from behind the camera whispering through a sea of stars, his eyes driftwood on a beach, filling him with warmth, his smirk enough the set the world alight. And he laughed. And he couldn't stop.
And the man took him by the hand and span him around and Dan allowed him to. And the other camera men cast their eyes away to whisper did you see Joanne's Botox, and the moment was theirs and Dan felt as if he were floating on the sea of Phil's eyes, both calm and peaceful and whole but also a reckless fear of abandon, of drowning, of diving in and never coming back.
"These pictures." Whispered Phil, the distance seeming to close but not close enough as the whispers stretched across the air, and Dan felt it, he felt the electricity, warning him away and yet dragging him closer, begging for the spark "Are beautiful."
And Dan couldn't help the roses that grew on his cheeks and Phil made a vow to himself to make Dan is muse.
The secret was never theirs but the white starch t-shirts hung from their collarbones, collarbones that jutted from Dan's skin, perfectly formed. And Phil wished to kiss them at night. And Phil's eyes could capture Dan's from across a room. And the shoot was theirs once more, as so many now had been, Phil behind the camera, the flashes that still felt like lightning, but a different kind. The kind of lightning one sees through a screen powerful, pretty, tough, like a rainbow that arches through the sky, merely something else to marvel at, merely another myth. And that's what lightning felt like. A myth. In comparison to the electricity that Phil exuded, forming atop of his head like a halo of power, the lightning was simply reduced to pretty, like Dan so often had been before then.
But he reckoned both of them were okay with it.
And Phil found himself taking pictures even when they weren't at work, when the soft leather enveloped them into hugs, when Dan's curly hair spilled across the pillow in the morning light, when the snow fell against his eyelashes. And Dan was the muse. Was the one and only muse. And Phil kept the photos of Dan on the walls, in the draws, but it was all over spilling. Over spilling into Phil's dreams as he spelt.
Paint splattered like the rainbow, softer than the lightning and yet falling like the lashing rain, dripping from the walls of the apartment, their apartment. And Phil thought of the keys in the bowl by the door and he couldn't stop looking at Dan like a painting and his hands itched for his camera, to capture the moment. He had read a quote once, if you want to see what people fear losing, watch what they photograph, and it was right. Because Phil took photos, and then he took photos. He appreciated beauty but then there was Dan. Then there was breath captured within a jar and held against the stars. And Phil feared Dan ever joining the night sky. And the paint splattered against Phil's chest as Dan caught him staring, like a bullet wound to the heart, but it was already too late, and Dan smiled at him through his fringe and when did I ever grow to be so lucky. Colours flew from their paintbrushes like birds, red, orange, yellow, blue, paintbrushes dipping into pots of gold and laughter flowing like a song. And all the movies with flickering filters and soft music made sense and Phil could see why people screamed about love like it was the word of god, like it descended from the heavenly mount tengu, because it was like sunshine in the veins.
Power couple. The headlines read and Dan was a small hedgehog, curled into Phil's chest but he could still murmur,
"They have it wrong."
"Huh?"
"They have it wrong."
"What."
"'Power couple' as if only we hold the power, as if only those with gold statues lining their mantelpieces and their faces printed onto everlasting screens can be 'power'." Dan paused, "Everyone is powerful, everyone is strong and you don't need talent or fame to be a force of nature, you don't need haters to build you up, nor love, nor someone's arms sloped around your shoulder. Each and every person is their own ball of power, and no one should take that away from anyone.'"
And Dan trailed off towards the end, his eye growing sleepy and Phil was reminded that love wasn't a shout into the void, and it wasn't hitting into a wall at high speeds, but rather it was drifting driftwood on the sea, lulling and ever moving like the slope of Dan's words. And Phil held him a little closer.
Bowls smashed against the walls like the old thunder, banging of light switches like the old lightning, tears hurling against the floor like the old rain, the power building up inside. Because somehow when you own so much power belonging to one person, it can be construed and energy can never be created or destroyed only transferred, transferred from love to hate, but what physics was missing, what society was walking straight by was that nothing was ever wholly transferred and even as Dan hurled the bowl by Phil's head and even as he collapsed against the kitchen island to the floor, and even as he heard Phil's feet stomp on the stairs, he still felt love, he still felt every form of energy in his bones. And he still felt powerful like lightning.
Dan walked down the catwalk and Phil's hand hovered over the button on his camera. Dan's coat swayed as his legs strode forward, and he was filled with power, and when he talked about power it was in every way there is to define power, in the prospect of world domination and in the beauty of a smile, in the confidence of a stride and the nerve to say no. And Dan felt it all at once, turning on his heel and flashing his famous smirk straight to Phil's heart, but Phil was too dazed to catch it in his hands.
Dan shook many hands that day but the only ones he cares about are Phil's, his long slender fingers flicking against the neck tie for his camera with nerves, but also with a sense of pride as he watches Perrine stride to Dan, her hair shimmering with a glow that is binding, her slender fingers stroking Dan's face. And he feels pride. Pride and happiness. Because he's been on the journey with Dan and he has followed him along the path to the point where their faces are flashed across magazines and they get stopped in the street, and people ask Dan for his autograph, dashing over that shoot or this advert, throwing words in the air like balls to dogs, iconic, legendary, pretty. And when they say pretty it is not condescending, the words shimmer in their eyes like forgotten stars, and they mean it, they say it with all the power behind it, the knowledge of the power it takes to be 'pretty'.
And their new cottage has a large open window that shows the garden, the small wall at the foot of the garden seeming to frame the sea view and Dan could almost see small feet weaving in the long grass, but he didn't have to imagine the pitter patter because the sound of Phil's typewriters wrapped around him like a wave and he wondered when that sound started to sound like home, the clashing of the keys reminding him of warmth and coffee that spilled onto the carpet. And Phil took photos of Dan.
He took photos of Dan with the long grass wrapping around his face, the sand between his toes, his legs swinging against the wall, he took photos against the whitewashed wall of their house, steam rising from the coffee cup, Phil's glasses propped on his nose, he took photos of him naked and bare, tangled within their duvet, hair still partially moist. He became filled with a great urge to study life, to study the life he saw reflected in Dan, the future that stretched out in front of them like an ever winding path.
And it was three in the morning, and the crackling sounds echoed through the radio and Phil's hands clutched at Dan's waist, the dim refrigerator light casting shadows over the kitchen, and lighting everything up just enough for Dan to make out Phil's eyes. Pictures hung in wonky frames, pictures of Dan, pictures of Phil, but pictures of them, of kisses on noses, and lips, and collarbones, and of bowties and rings slipping onto fingers, of eyes caught on one another. Lightning struck outside. Dan no longer felt the fear, only the power as it crackled along the sky.
And it was Phil who said let's go outside. And it was Dan who dragged them out, fingers entwined like the knotting clouds and rain lashing from above, as they danced, thunders of laughter erupting from their stomachs as they bowed, taking each other's hands and dancing with reckless abandon, with no planned moves or steps, not the hours they spent for their wedding day, not the carefully angled looks of a shoot but rather power filling their veins, laughter fuelling their steps as they moved, their cares buried in the mud by the rain.
And when Dan tucked his fingers into the belt of Phil's dressing gown, he wondered when Phil became family, and realised that he had been all along. He didn't need his face to be preserved in greying ink, he needed the coffee stains on their bedside table, the pile of blankets by the translucent back door, the hair that always stuck up from Phil's head in the morning, he needed domestic fights over whose turn it was to put the shopping away and hugs from behind to the background of the hoover.
Phil's title faded from fresh new face to old favourite and he was fine, and Dan was still his muse, his one and only muse, his collections filled with him, the phone ringing like a bell, full of people who were desperate to have him capture them in the same way, the capture their wedding days with the same soft glows of light, and Phil accepted.
There were questions that tumbled from his mother's lips like water down a hill, why don't you buy a bigger house, queries from half close strangers of you have the money. But the cottage was warmth, it was Dan tangled in his arms at night and it was their home, the growing flowers more full of life than any mansion could be, the stumbling table an old friend.
And Phil continued with his shoots and Dan continued with his shoots, oceans overlapping. And Dan would press his keys into the lock, to find his kitchen filled with models, each of them tall and dew-eyed, each with angular faces that would have challenged even Michelangelo but Phil's eyes would still find time to smile at him across the room. Dan loved days like those. Days where the apartment seemed so full of power, creativity flying through the air like a wild bird, soaring like the stars above and everything was so charged and Dan could see life like the clear water of the ocean, could dip his hands in it like the stars. Because every person is flawed and every model is flawed, Phil was flawed, Dan was flawed, but Dan felt that was the meaning of his life on the tilting planet. To love every flaw as deeply as he could.
Raging kisses were swapped for tender fondness, the kiss on the temple, the arms wrapped round and a tiny new voice joined them, rolled amongst the grass, stroked along the flower, became the nation's muse, captured in Phil's work. And Phil's photos were more than photos and Dan had always thought that. They weren't merely pretty pictures they were power, every line of ink beaming of power, the power of life, the power of love, the power that each individual holds inside them like a tea light, too afraid to pull it from inside them, too afraid the wind will whip the flame away, shame, it had always been shame that stopped the seeing of the flame, people throw rocks and things that shine, but you could see it in Phil's photos, the flames erupting from Dan, from the small child, from Phil. The power that leaked from the pages, dribbling love like water.