Sometimes I look at you,
and you seem to be looking back at me.
But sometimes you look away
as if you're afraid of what might happen
if you look just a second longer.

The way you keep looking back at me,
as if there was something in me worth seeing.
I wish I could envision the world
the same way you do.

Where everything is beautiful and new
and innocent.
Your world is untouched.
Immaculate.
Like a little kid.

But in some way, that's exactly what you are.

Zipper your arms around me,
and meld into my eyes.
Button your lips to mine,
and let me breathe in that autumn air
while I'm wrapped in you.

Slip your hands down my waist
while I crack a weathered smile.
Stitching your fingers through mine.
Let me know that all of this coldness that we've felt
is merely from the seasons.

Pressing your forehead to mine,
leaving everything the Summer held behind.
We're just two people,
crunching fallen leaves with our feet,
which echo the sounds of what we're
trying so hard to avoid.

These words.
These seemingly futile words.
They're all I have.

These consonants and vowels
taking up space
in your full-capacity life.
It's all I can do.

All of my letters combined
are battling all of these
busy days that have you in
a choke-hold.

I'm doing this.
Because it's all I want to do.
To give you all of me.
Everything I am.
Everything I've ever been.
Everything I can be.
In the only way that I know how.

But, ****.
You have other things to do
than listen to some
silly little words.

I guess it's time to move on.
Because this is that
and that is this.
Without words, there's a shift.
Our disposition sways.

The sentiments and gestures
it all festers
in the small space between us
because it just doesn't
have anywhere else to go.

No matter how busy I make myself,
it's still there.
Pounding on the cage
in the back of my mind.

I never wanted to let slip
the anguish
which was breathing through my pores.
But it's there.
Emanating around me.
In the small space between us.

When he's trying to convey a message
about the mathematical equation of light
by drawing on my skin
with an invisible finger-pen,
the pictures of
electromagnetic quanta,
photons,
and particles
becomes disrupted
by a static-wave of goosebumps.

I forgot what it was like
to stay up past the point of exhaustion,
just to see my phone light up
with your name on it.

It makes me feel special again.
Like we're the only ones awake
in this bustling world.

A secret kept between
me
you
and the atmosphere.

Thinking of us and the asphalt
and how amazing it felt
at 3AM.
Streetlights dancing on our skin,
tracing your ears
and shoulders
and other places I like to nuzzle.

The pavement
reading the traces of your fingertips
on my back
like braille.
Every breath vibrating in the air.

Using each other as a blanket,
wrapping my limbs around you.
Scarfing up and down the road.
Sinking into this.

The monotony of adolescence is a laughable oxymoron.
My mom keeps saying to me,
"Caitlin, you're in a state of flux. Just wait."
Little does she know
I'm waiting for anything
to ebb.
Flow.
Twinge.
Any lurch of impulse of life
in this constant static lullaby.

Maybe I'm just itching to slough off my skin of content
and breathe in a fresh new disposition.
Become intoxicated in the maybes,
and the possibly's.
Embracing the oh-wells
and the never-enough-times.
Eschewing the feeling of everything I've missed
by having it near.
Having him here.

Getting trapped in the crinkles of his smile
and the freckles on his shoulders
that navigate me to the spots I feel most comfy.
Losing regard for the world as I become transfixed
in us
and our patterns on his couch.

Tumble into elation.
Quirks transpire the me's and you's
into the us's and we's.

To think... I was so scared to hold his hand.
Not knowing at the time
how great his waffles would taste
after a night of holding him.