1- i'm scared i'll end up like you when i grow up
#2- i'm scared i'll forget our time together
#3- i'm scared you'll go further in life than me
#4- i'm scared we won't keep in touch once we graduate
#5- i really want you to be in my life
#6- sometimes i feel like we don't even know each other, but we're best friends
#7- i like your attention but don't like you
#8- i don't know what i'll do when you die
#9- i compare myself to you obsessively
#10- i think i really like you

i guess everything has some quirk that defines them
i like to start things;
flirting with boys and girls
but never planning on following up
learning a new language every week,
then forgetting the one i learned previously
dieting for a week
then eating ben and jerry's for a month
i'm running out of new things to start
i want you to stick

being introverted actually has nothing to do with drinking tea or reading a lot
all it is? being cooler with small groups of people than large.
where the heck did people start thinking introverts were these glorified
manic pixie dream girls that lounge around all day writing poetry and drinking tea and feeling lonely?
i don't know. maybe i'm dumb or pretentious, but to me, being introverted has nothing to do with tea.

Oh, Lac Operon, gene cluster great, you code for enzymes three,
but only if Lactose in the cell arrives to set you free.
Lac Z, Lac A, Lac Y: these genes would be expressed
yet a crafty protein from gene I keeps you so repressed.
Binding to the Operator, I’s Repressor keeps you capped.
Do not despair—Lactose saves you from this cruel Repressor trap,
for Lactose turns the Repressor off, giving you the space
to make galactosidase, transacetylase, and lactose permease.
Then Polymerase binds the Promoter, and the Lac genes have their day.
yet alas! They break down Lactose, taking your savior away.
When Lactose is gone, the Repressor binds and causes you to freeze,
so Operon, to live again, you must find more milk and cheese.

i want the two of us shivering on a bare mattress in a ****** new york apartment
i want the two of us fighting over something stupid like what to listen to in the car
i want the two of us to go grocery shopping together
i want the two of us to make breakfast together without pants, singing into spatulas
holding hands at a concert
i want to see what you look like during summer- your hair loose and blowing in the wind, sunburns across your shoulders
i want to see what you look like in the winter- bundled in baggy sweaters and hunched shoulders
i want to see what you look like 5 years from now

who knows how these things start.  some animalistic girl with the air of donation sits beneath the kind of playground slide could convince nowhere of a middle while two boys with cardboard swords keep each of us from the ladder unless we allow her to bite us on the arm.  pretty soon we’re in math class showing each other how many times we went down and pretty soon our younger siblings are smacked or hungry or puckered from being bathed.  some of us run out of room while some of us have two good legs.  some of us pull at our mothers as if all prayed out of playmates.  the girl goes weeks without god before giving in.  her swordsmen move on to pocket knives and loitering.  you see her in the food court of the mall sitting with her wheelchair bound father and brother and tell us there’s no magic that pushes them both.

we’re here to ****** the head of the boy who put a clown’s red nose on the girl playing jesus for stopped traffic.  if I spoke your language, I would tell you.