Tonight I was given a surprise early Christmas gift: a ticket to see Placebo in concert. Stepping out of all the other roles I wear during my day is like coming home. There’s something here beneath everything else, calling my name, reminding me life can be more than this and that those who can’t stand in this place do not meet me, and not should they. You have never met me. 

There’s a place here where I don’t have to be strong, or professional, or feel anything, or hide what I am feeling. Where there’s no ideal against which I’m being measured or benchmark of success. I put on mascara to weep it down my face and I remember there’s a kind of magic in being able to feel something, or making someone else feel. 

Down comes the night, with that sad song. Such is the power of art.

When I pulled an old handbag from the back of my closest for the concert, I found my fountain pen that I lost two years ago. The old Parker I’ve had since I was a teenager, bought with the prize money from a short story competition. 

Here is the space in which I breathe, the place between worlds where the rain falls. Remembering being sixteen again and finding other freaks for the first time, dancing in clubs. Goths are often such gentle creatures, the crowd parts to let me stand in front with my friends. 

Maybe one day we will stop pretending we fit into the world. Slicing off toes to step into the shoes. Once we walked the world at 3am, barefoot in the rain. What is it that makes you feel alive? What makes your soul take flight? 

It’s right here, waiting. Right beside you, in the shadow of all your longing to belong.