insular, isolated.
feeling confident, comforted.
let these walls close in one me.
limit my freedoms and my choices.

outside influences and other people
stealing from the intimacy,
destroying my new-found confidence.
because they make it difficult to love. [you].

i am weak and tragically fragile.
so now all these memories are agonizing.
solve my perverse needs and own my love.
i need you because, without, i have nothing left.
i will destroy everything that i have built.

our experiences and insecurities.
perfectly intertwined in our disorders and tragic flaws.
not enough, never enough.
all there is left to have is love and romantic intimacy.

what is left for me?
you can destroy my chastity.
satisfy what few carnal desires i possess.
i have wanted you for what feels like forever.

i want you more than anything i have ever wanted.
our tacit agreement to one day be intimate is gnawing at my sanity.
everyone looks like a stranger,
and i have dreamt of nothing but you.

but, to them, you are nothing special.
well, perhaps something, but relative to me, nothing.
and that could possibly be a great deal, objectively.
but, compared to me, their love for you is negligible, insignificant, not worth exploring.

i am finding it harder to breathe.
not because i am afraid to lose you.
but because i am scared of how much i love you.
how much these emotions consume me.
how this will someday destroy me.
'                      [ i would not have it any other way ]

your presence has inspired a flood of creativity in me.
your specter;
your laughter, smile, and eyes;
your disposition, personality, and mindset;
your loving and intoxicating gaze;
your untamable hair;
your impeccable style;
your anxious, angsty, yet calming demeanor;
your adorable sighs and rolling of the eyes;
that cute act we both know you put on toward me;
that actual outrage you loathe and embrace;
your indecision and need to please others.

just know how much i love these things more than i care for myself.

i try to write these thoughts about you but these people, these surroundings do no favors.
trying to compare these people to you is laughable
trying to remember those feelings in a place like this, without you, is absolutely fruitless.
i feel nothing looking into the eyes of these people that i feel when i glance in your direction.
i am bored and unfulfilled without you; all i feel is longing and for once, desire.

let’s move past the absurd interactions and expectations.
let’s transcend time through our love.
disregard our relationships with others,
beyond the cities and places we will go,
forget our futures.
us, together, ourselves.
without time and place, people and objects.
us, together.
nothing else.

our interactions and history(ies) mean nothing.
this has all been a front to defend against imperfection.
the incessant desire we share for the cores of our beings to be together with nothing else.
for our fates to become intertwined and for us to become one in our emotions.

this is LXXIV.
it means i love you.
LXXIV means seventy-four.

whether it be the warmth of a body feigning love against yours,
or the welcomed sting of alcohol on your consciousness,
or the water, like concrete as you crash onto the river's surface, flailing with temporary regret,
it is all there is left to live for.

the past is useless.
the future is hopeless.