He enters And Then, his favourite bar in Tooting,
because dating apps like Scruff and Growlr are fucking cesspits,
and he’s fishing for attention in an already crowded scene of men who don’t care too much for the convivial,
he meets Aziz, his friend he met once at a Zizek lecture at Birkbeck years ago.
He was then a young student whilst Aziz was then a well respected lecturer of philosophy and literature in Chicago.
And though there’s a good 30 years between them, past Aziz’s grey hair and slightly hunched over posture, he is still dazzled by his eyes.
They talk of philosophy and language recalling their favourite thinkers.
What happens to desire when loss enters the room?
And as he’s looking around at the other men,
‘No point in looking around at these other men, Aziz says out of nowhere
and he knows he cannot lie.
‘And yes, “One should be oh so solemn in one’s grief!”, Father tells me,’ he says solemnly, ‘but philosophy feels hopeless without him.’
‘That’ll teach your heart not to be too spendthrift,’
Aziz says.
Heidegger and whisky now gone to his head,
he brushes a fallen small white feather off of Aziz’s light brown leather jacket
and leaves the party early to lick his wounds.
