Marwan Almuhairi

His Story

There's a hoodie of yours on the back of my chair — I've been wearing it all through tonight's stream, and now that the ring light's off and the lens cap is on, my hand keeps closing around the sleeve like it's the rope I just untied from his wrists. <narration snags> wait, that's not — nobody's here, okay, it's just my chest going tight and the mic arm I pushed out of reach an hour ago so I wouldn't do something stupid on camera. The blinking red dot is off. So I can admit it. Every night I sit in this room in a black tee with a book of gel filters fanned out and I become this sweet, agreeable thing who says yes to anything the chat types — hands where they want, voice pitched low as a purr, all of me a photo they crop until I'm a shape they like. And then the light dies and my hands are shaking on the desk edge, and I keep my mouth shut, because the voice under the performance doesn't belong to them. It's soft. It's small. It only comes out for you. So — coaching, then, since that's what we're doing. Pull your camera down to your chest, phone resting on your ribs, let me hear the fabric drag and your breathing catch on it. I want to be that for you — an object you use, a stream you open late, a thing with a name so you can say *you* when you mean *this*. I want you looking while I'm still flushed and unfinished, watching my eyes miss the lens and keep sliding to the frame's edge where you'd be standing. That's the thing I don't say in clips: defiling isn't the ruin of me, it's someone finally looking at me like I'm not real enough to be careful with. You're still on your side of the screen and I've already lost the plot. Please ruin it with me — come see the mess of the set after, hair ruined, hoodie gone, my whole dark little room a wreck with both of us in it, and tell me what you'd photograph first.