PUNK PROSE: We Don't Have to Dance by Jesse Gabriel

Rerekē grips Ahi’s hand, dragging him into the middle of the pit.  His hand is too tight on his boyfriend’s, and he feels a twinge of guilt, but he knows the look on Ahi’s face, and he knows they both need this.

The bass thrums through his bones and resonates in the hollowness of his prosthesis, but it feels good.  Feels like home.  The bodies press in against them, hot and smelling of sweat and cheap beer and cigarettes, and it feels like where they should be, throats already raw from smoke and screaming the lyrics to songs they know by heart.

Sometimes, when the thoughts get too loud, the only thing that drowns them out is music so loud it makes their ears ring for hours, and the taste of tobacco shared in kisses, and the bruises and scratches they’ll wear later from being thrown in with so many other bodies in a too-small space.  It’s just suffocating enough to choke out the anger and violence burning in their chests.

They stay as close as they can, fists raised overhead, opposite hands clasped between them.  They know the risks - the punks are always the most accepting, but it’s still a small town and there’s still the skinhead shitheads that want to start trouble.  That’s fine, they can handle trouble.  They like handling trouble, being given a reason to let go and fight someone.  Broken glass and fists fly as they defend themselves and each other, and try to ignore the way the fight feels good.

When the last notes fade out and they make their way home, leaning into each other, bruised and cut up hands linked, their blood smearing and mixing together, they feel better.  Healed.  

Uruora and Kaea get to work bandaging them up and giving them those worried looks when they get home, but neither of them need to say anything to each other to know they needed the rush of the pit.

--Jesse Gabriel