nakasomethingkun:

Andrew wants to kiss Neil.
Correction: Andrew wants to kiss Neil’s scarred cheeks.
It starts with Andrew coming to a realization.
While they were on the roof watching the last light of the day draining away, Andrew realized he felt calm. It was different from his usual kind of calm detachment, because he wasn’t distancing himself from anything. There was the purple hues in the gamut of the sky, the smudges of fading orange from the sun, the weight of Neil’s head on his shoulder, the warmth of Neil’s body leaning against his, and he felt – soft. At ease.
It made him angry.
He had shoved Neil away and left the roof. Neil kept his distance, allowing Andrew space without asking for any explanation. It made Andrew angrier.
Not unkindly, Bee told him, it’s because you’re unused to this.
Andrew didn’t tell her, there is no this. He told her, I want to try to be gentle. But I don’t think I am capable of it.
She told him, you are. She told him again, Andrew, you are.
Andrew has kissed other parts of Neil that aren’t his lips. His hipbone, his thighs, his navel. Neil has kissed other parts of Andrew too. His forearms, his chest, and of course, his neck.  
But Andrew has never kissed any other parts of Neil’s face, and he realizes that he wants to. He wants to press his lips to the pleats of knife scars on his right cheek, to the whorl of burn marks on his left cheek, to the tip of his freckled nose. He’s dug his teeth into the defined corner of Neil’s jaw, but he wants to kiss it too.
In the dorm room, when they are by themselves, Andrew tells Neil, I want to try something.
Putting his pencil down and closing his textbook, Neil tells Andrew, okay.
In the bedroom, Andrew says, I want to try something, but I need you to close your eyes.
Neil looks at him, then says, okay.
Andrew looks at him, then closes the space between them. The light from the bedside table skims off Neil’s eyelashes and splatters over his skin in gold.
Andrew asks, yes or no?
With his eyes closed, Neil says, yes.
Andrew tucks Neil’s hair behind an ear, leans forward with his chin tilted, and kisses Neil on his cheek. He feels the bob of muscle under his lips, but Neil keeps his eyes closed. Andrew strokes his thumb over the spot he just kissed, and thinks, yes.
He shifts a little and kisses the knot of pink skin on Neil’s other cheek. He does it once, twice, thrice. He does it again and again, each kiss softer than the last.  
He falls back flat on his feet. He didn’t realize that he was standing on his tiptoes.
He tells Neil, you can open your eyes.
Neil opens them, blinking slowly, eyelashes fluttering.
He asks, may I?
Andrew nods.
Neil raises his hands and cups Andrew’s face. The tips of his fingers glide into Andrew’s hair. The blueness of his eyes is annihilating.
He asks, may I?
Andrew says, yes.
Neil leans forward, and kisses Andrew on his forehead.
Eyes falling shut, Andrew exhales softly. 

He thinks, yes. 

inkskinned:

the older i get the more disgusted by diet culture i become.

there’s a reason it targets young girls. there’s a reason it hinges on making grown women look tiny and helpless and weak. there’s a reason that it is normalized to the extent that what is ostensibly not a healthy act is seen as being a “good” choice and something to be proud of. 

young people are just completely submerged in it. adults forget that kids pick up on fucking everything and they hear their parents and their teachers and everyone on this planet not eating red meat this week or on juice cleanses or denying denying denying themselves (”oh good for you! i’d never be able to be so well-behaved”). they learn really, really fast that “fat” is a funny, not-good, close-to-a-swear word – to the extent that my usually well-behaved five year olds will devolve into crazy giggles because i asked “pass me one of the fat markers please”. they don’t react like that to anything else, just “fat” which they know is bad/off-limits/terrible. 

and we pretend we’re so confused by obesity and by the skyrocketing eating disorder rate – a rate of diagnosed eating disorders, mind you, since disordered eating is now essential to many american eating traditions – and we blame millenials or GMOs or whatever won’t make us look a multi-billion dollar industry in the eye and realize. they literally teach us from a young age what is essentially a restriction/denial cycle that is very close to a binge cycle. they teach us “good” and “bad” and “safe” foods but don’t supply the money for us to obtain those foods (and god forbid you live in a food desert) while also selling us Magical Cures For Magical Transformations. 

and of course it works. you teach people to crash diet and lo and behold their metabolism becomes entirely dependent on your cycle of starvation/refeeding. the statistic that most people gain back the weight they lost isn’t because people are these terrible people have no self control (but they sell that idea to you, don’t they), it’s that their metabolism was trashed and the way they look at food cannot change in the span of a crash diet – if it takes someone with an eating disorder seven years to recover, we understand that, but if someone overweight gains back their lost weight it’s “a shame”. and the diet culture wins both sides, i want you to understand that. they make money of of you either way. they know that you’re gaining the weight back but fucking scrambling – they know you’ll try to buy their product because last time it worked to buy atkins or weight watchers, and they know that when you’re losing the weight, well, goddamn, you’re going to be an advertising board for them because we teach each other that this is coffee-break material, isn’t it. 

and we sell each other on it. we say, “oh this worked for me, you’ve gotta try it.” none of the people we speak to are nutritionists, but everyone on the internet has a degree in medicine, so don’t worry, if you step outside in a bikini and are not unhealthy levels of skinny (oh but it’s healthy if it’s the right kind of skinny), you will be reminded to lose weight. we keep our women running on such low levels of carbs/calories/fats that they’re permanently exhausted, weak, emotionally drained – and then we crow women are just crazy. meanwhile men get the opposite treatment that is unhealthy in a different way – the obsession with masculinity through food, of all things, that salad is “rabbit food” and that a real “man’s meal” is red meat and beer. 

and god forbid you say, “this shit is fucking predatory, it’s evil, it’s controlling people’s bodies” because you’ll get fifty-seven “okay, fatty” comments that miss the point completely, because the companies are really, really smart and they learned: if you call someone fat, you can ignore them completely. and anyone who isn’t “into dieting” is therefore fat and incapable of healthy eating. healthy eating, is of course, defined by the company – but hey! you can help that person realize they’re just a stupid/dumb/ignorant fatty. or if they’re somehow magically not fat, you can tell them, “well, one day you will be.”

and i just know. i know. this shit will continue. it always does.