Chloé Carolina Hudson

"I am Chloe, I have been writing poems and short stories focusing on love and romance for most of the last 5 years, in that time I have spent time on trying to spread Trans Joy as well as exploring concepts like love, dating and physical intimacy through both an aromantic and transgender perspective, this involves creating loving stories and safe mental spaces through my poems, stories and lived experiences that I turn into stories."

Instagram: @lovingly_loveless

TRANS CLUB NIGHT / A PLACE FOR ME

29th January 2024

A bright sea of UV paint, strobe lights and smoke sit over the room in front of me

Dancing bodies moving, almost, in time – almost

Merging, moving and coming together, two or three into one

The world is bright and technicolour – filled with song and life

And here I am at the back of it all, leaning up against a wall

More in exhaustion than in any attempt to look cool

This isn’t really a place for me 

I’m tired and want to go home, like always.

An exasperated sigh forces its way out, as I lean back and splay out my legs

I watch the rhythmic motion of the people in front,

Happy, confident and strikingly beautiful I look down at myself and feel the contrast rattling in my bones

I know what I am supposed to look like – thin, chiselled, beautiful

This isn’t really a place for you

The thought loud in my head drowning out all others

This isn’t really a place for you.

Lost in my own world, at the back of my head

I am suddenly forced back into the world

I feel a knock and look down, to see someone staring back up me

They’re hot

I reach down and grab their hand to pull them up

It's soft and warm

They’re blushing, their cheeks have gone rosy and warm.

And God only knows what they’re thinking.

We’ve both realised we’re staring.

We both start to stumble out words and incomplete sentences

You need to stop staring now

But I can’t peel my eyes away from them.I look them up and down, they do the same,

And there’s a spark between us, like I had been waiting my whole life

their clothes are clinging to him, curving and wrapping their body perfectly

their hair now messy and scruffy sits, almost in the exact perfect place

I stare deeper into their eyes, bright and inviting

Say something – say anything

But then a sort of steely determination comes across their face.

Reaching out, they gently grab my hand and lead me away

Without a word, into the sea of UV paint and noise.

Maybe there is a place for me.

their body moves around mine, I’m not sure what I’m doing

But they grab, and they lead, they let me follow

And I try to copy their groove – but I’m not very good.

It doesn’t matter, they still stare me down and dance

My chronic lack of style seemingly not affecting their adoration.

What can I do but let them lead me, to guide me with warm hands around the floor

In this sea of people, I am led to them like a sailor to a siren.

alluring and seducing, potentially dangerous (but that’s fine by me).

My feet clumsily thrash around but my eyes are fixed on their body

Then our hands are free to glide over each other

The soft surface of their outfit clinging to their skin is warm and inviting

I feel their warmth pass over me, leaving behind splodges of UV paint

Each line and trace is a mark to say

This is a place for you

Each look and feel is an invitation

One I have to take

The night passes in a brightly coloured, beautiful blur

And by the end I am covered in lines of paint

Traced gently out along my body

Showing me all the parts of myself that can be loved

Like a highlighted book, their marks on me, as if to say,

There is a place for you here

Pottery Studio

Sitting before mounds of pink and blue clay

Half done sketches and vague ideas taking shape in my mind

I look upon my studio of scrap paper

Messy canvases and broken pottery

I can picture it all in my head, exactly as I want it

So taking a lump of clay, I begin

The wet clay sticks to my hands

slowly drying up and cracking

My hands are trembling

As I create a soft malleable body

Cutting away the parts I hate, adding and shaping those I love

I look at my reflection, and sculpting every millimetre,

My tired hands turn it into clay

My hopes, aspirations and dreams

Given shape at last

And eventually, it’s finished

A sculpture cracked, flawed and imperfect

Rough and a little damaged

But it’s mine

Ready to be baptised by the fires of the kiln

Gently and delicately, I let safe, soft hands

Run down the cracked, flawed surface

Of the image I have sculpted for myself

I am a delicate piece of pottery

Like the ones on the shelves of old shops

Shaped, by hand, with love

I want to be picked up

Taken home to be loved

By someone who has also sculpted themselves in their own perfect image

So we may be perfectly imperfect in a way nothing else can be

Once we broke the mould and crafted ourselves in never-before-seen ways

We saw the beautiful colours, the creativity

All the beauty of the world arranged

Like art in a gallery, pottery in a studio

And we can experience it all

Together

Euphoria

He puts his hand down my waistband

The other slipped up my shirt

Tenderly, gently, slowly

Slowly and surely,

Grabbing hold, I feel safe

our hands search as we explore

Every part of us

We see our reflections in each other

Hearts beating in time

Missing the pieces of ourselves

We see in each other

Something sparks between us

Pain, joy, understanding, love?

Flying all around us

Everything makes sense all at once

And I feel it

Euphoria