The Haunting of the Ageless Twink

The Ageless Twink is what they call the petite, gay man with the body of an eighteen-year-old but who is chronologically in their mid-thirties. One looks in the mirror, their hair still black with the exception of one stubborn gray that has lived rent-free on their scalp since high school.

The Ageless Twink is coveted by the self-proclaimed tops, loathed by their envious expired twink counterparts, and pitied or underestimated by just about every other man on the phase of the planet. That’s how I interpreted, least.

I sat in my self-imposed cell. I typically hated the idea of isolation, but I couldn’t expose myself one more time to the ick of elevated haunting. I moved little, but tirelessly in my mind, which explained the exhaustion I felt in every fiber of my body. I laid in bed, a borrowed bed from the roommate that was never home; one that charged me little rent but ate up every bit of my remaining self-esteem and emotional autonomy. The obsessive social media scrolling didn’t help relief my helplessness in any facet of my being.

They haunted me most between the hours of eleven p.m. and two a.m. Every song reminding me of them in some shape or form, but I couldn’t stop the obsessive replaying. The aggressive social media scrolling was infectious, from envying happily-paired, gay couples to couples in general. I felt every fleeting hour was a ticking for the aging to take full effect. What was this generosity God, if such a being exists, was gracing me with if I would have to spend it longing, alone, either by self-isolation or them punishing me for existing at some point in their life.

I didn’t mind that prison entirely; after all, you can be in a room full of people and be alone. There were worst prisons I had explored, either through force or naivety. Sometimes I felt like I was welcoming insanity into my life; from replaying meeting every one of these merciless souls matching the darkness I laid awake in. I always thought that living alone would bring me peace, and it did, in waves…

Unfortunately, these waves were interrupted by each visiting memory. From the blue-eyed Texan I went to school with, to the midwesterner I met that fell for me before I fell for him only to ultimately break my heart anyway, the alluring Serbian-American I met on the eve before Thanksgiving, to the gamer whose heart already belonged to someone who I shared a name with along with the same love. They all tormented me for worse or worse.

The last one struck differently—fatally. The irony lies in the love I felt for me, which wasn’t entirely profound or everlasting; the attention he showered me with is what reeled me in. “Pookie,” not at all original but a nickname that made my heart fluttered nonetheless. A good morning text, followed by countless text messages throughout the day. Telling his superiors about me. Telling his shallow, West Hollywood gay prototype about our first date. Telling me about his entire day and the tragic dates before our first. He slowly crept before my walls and bulldozed past them, engorged with the fantasy of his ultimate goal. I still remember him knighting me, after our first and only time sharing a bed: I had descended from the polished Pookie to the unrefined, Ageless Twink.

Then he disappeared unlike Caspar the friendly ghost. No, he was something along the lines of an impressionable lover from a Nicholas Sparks novel. With him, he took the final, withering euphoria that made me believe in living life to achieve love.

What now? I contemplated after what felt like my fortieth consecutive day in bed. Forcing myself to address basic hygiene, feeding myself at least once a day, mostly through caffeine and sugar to numb the overwhelming emptiness. What now? I contemplate the significance to being the Ageless Twink, too weak and worthless when fighting the haunting of each and every man before me. Ripping away at me until less than zero remains.