you do not make me crave you. i look at you, and i do not feel a pull towards you in any way. you are attractive, but you are singular. you are simply a person and for some reason i can not gather up the energy to want you. you are a beautiful person, you are something solid and natural, and i wish that i wanted you. but i look at you, and all i feel is an interest. i want to know who you are without putting in the energy. please, give me something, some part of you, knowing that i will give you absolutely nothing in return. please, give yourself up to me. maybe i want you just so that i can have control over something, or maybe i want you just because i can have you. maybe i will gather an eli and a devin and a fitz and a gerrard and a  hunter until i have every letter and then maybe i will be content having collected every boy that i possibly could. eli please, give me something more. give me everything. i want everything that you could give me and you will get nothing, it will not be a fair trade and you will not be happy in the end but that is okay because i will be content with what i have gotten.

your eyes give me a sign. they open up and they seem to know. they pretend to know. they act like the know. they do not. i do not want them to know me. you do not know me. i am me and i will show you what i want you to know. you do not get to discover me. you do not get to see inside. i dont want you to be able to figure me out. this isnt fun. i dont like this. please, just keep your distance and i will give you what you need to know, i will supply your thirst with what i am willing to provide. i am not willing to show you something like this, like my apprehension towards anything new. i do not know and that bothers me. i wish i could know. i wish you could not. i wish i could see, and i wish you could not. please, take what i am giving you and nothing else. i am not giving you a look inside. i am not allowing you the right pieces, please, return them and i will give you something new. please, stop. dont try to look inside. close your eyes. dont look. i dont want you to see. please.

You ask me to stay, to be yours for as long as we can.
You ask me to be yours, just to end the battle and finally fall into each other's arms.
You ask me to call you beautiful, and I call you smart, funny, handsome, and beautiful.
You ask me to stay with you longer, and to make the decision about where the night will take us.
You ask me to stay, and I will. Maybe it's because I love you too, or maybe because you're electric and I'm water and I just want to feel the shock that you have to offer me.
I want to stay through the boring and the perfunctory because it's only natural to sink inside yourself sometimes, having nothing to offer the other person.
You ask me to stay and I am determined to keep you as long as I can. I have a thousand reasons to, but in the end it's just because you're you and I like that a whole lot.

Galileo is the dark hours, the time when I can explore him most. He is 7:30 when the sun is going down, showing me the secret underneath his first layer.

He is 9:30 when we are leaving dinner, forcing me to decide what to do for the next 2 hours and 30 minutes before curfew. This is when I begin to kiss him excessively (but still not enough).

He is 11:21, when we are laying together, trying to ignore the numbers on the clock and desperately praying to the heavens to just have a few more hours.

He is 12:07, when I realize that oh ****, I had to go home like 10 minutes ago. This is when I decide that I'm already late so we might as well keep going.

He is 12:49, when we finally fall asleep in different beds, already planning the next time to see each other. Where can I squeeze in those twenty minutes? When is the latest I can leave and still get home on time? When can I get him for as long as I need?

He is 5:50 the next day, when he wakes up and sends me a selfie of his tired face. This time is for him, when the day starts over and for when we begin the Life game again before we can make it stop again the next time I see him. When can I make the world stop with him? What's the longest I can get him to myself?

We are no clock and no time. Instead, he is a presence that I cannot overcome. Time will end, but his energy will not slow down for any clock.

You left a fingerprint on my computer, and it makes me think about the other places you have marked. Maybe there is some of you in my car and in my bedroom, leaving little memories everywhere you go. There is definitely some of you in my phone, where i try to collect as many pictures of you as posisble. But i know that most of you is inside my head, going on repeat when i think about Now and Then and When we did that and you said that...You are all over and it makes me want more fingerprints and photos and time. you are all over and i am loving it.

when he touches me, its like theres something underneath my skin that he is trying to get out. he is snatching apart my skin to get inside and find something. i dont know what he is looking for, i dont even know if he knows what he is looking for, but he still pulls apart my skin to search for it. every day he will pull just a little bit more, making my skin thinner and thinner, getting closer to the gooey center of what he desires. i can feel him getting closer, i can feel his fingertips dancing along the very first layer of it and i feel a sense of curiosity and a sense of relief. he has found something underneath my skin and he is showing it to me as well as discovering it for himself. each layer goes faster and faster until it is dripping down his arms and pooling in his palms. he has found it. he has found everything. my skin is gone, my layers are gone; he has found my soul and he is swimming in it.

You are floating in a bubble. There is nothing around you but the things that you absolutely need. You have water and vegetables and air and one ball of energy to keep you company. You have what you need and everything seems perfect, but there is something wrong. You are missing something. What is there that you need? You look around and take inventory, everything is there, so what could it be?

You discover that the ball of energy is only one type of energy. It is a green ball, but you need R E D. You need red energy, but all that is given to you is green. What the ****? Things are floating farther away. Things aren’t as easy to get to. You start craving that red energy, you need it to go on. You feel yourself suffocating without it.

And suddenly, everything that you need has been taken from you because all you thirst for is something that you can’t have: red, passionate, deep L O V E.

we stand looking at the painting and I watch you out of the corner of my eye. I try to see as much as I can of you. I want to soak you in and interpret you. Your colors are dark and humble and I wish I could look closer. I try to look for your breathing but it’s too hard to tell when you inhale and exhale, but I imagine that you’re breathing with me. If only I could— I just want you to engulf me, Make me a part of you and dip me into you. I want to look at you and just experience you. You look at me and I feel a step closer. I look at you and I find your details. Everything is there. Everything is here.

i turn on that one song, the one that has made me cry from the very beginning, and i drive. i look around in the darkness, flashing my lights onto the empty road to see if maybe somebody will respond. but nobody does, and the song goes on. the piano tune goes around a few times and i pay close attention to each sound. the three notes find their way into my throat, and i hum them to myself as i remember that night in the bathtub, the night i couldnt stay inside myself. suddenly i feel that way now, where i cant stand the feeling of being inside my own skin. the anxiety builds up and i sing the three notes louder. they dont comfort me. louder. they make me angry. louder. they suffocate me. louder. now im screaming inside my car, listening to the way my voice has weakened from all the nights like this. my voice struggles within my throat and i press the gas. the song starts over.

this ******* girl, the one with the long hair that she wants longer, shes the one that laughs at something to make you feel comfortable. she wants you to feel at home with her. and ****, she does it so well. she makes me feel like i can do anything and she would want to do it with me. this ******* girl, she looks like someone that protested the war and picked flowers for her cat. that girl, shes an activist and she looks so hot doing it. i find myself being attracted to her because she is so valiantly herself. this small ******* girl, nobody is like her. nobody can be so quiet and still attract you so violently. *******, she isnt even owned by the universe because she even fought against that too. ******, this girl is somebody i wouldnt even let myself have purely because she owns herself, and *******, it will always be that way.

God was supposed to be my mom
Wiping away the tears
When I didn’t want to breathe anymore

God was supposed to be my dad
Hugging me
When I didn’t know how
To handle my feelings

God was supposed to be my teacher
Encouraging me
Influencing me
When I couldn’t get my life together

God was supposed to be me
Living life to the fullest
And not being afraid.

God is none of these things.
I have yet to find out who God is.
****.

we, as humans, are plants. we grow from sunlight, water, and soil. every night we bury our feet into the soil, water ourselves, and fall asleep. the next day we get up and spend a few hours in the sun and then go about our day. we repeat this process every day because we are plants that grow normally and naturally but we live as humans. we do not need food or exercise because we are all natural beings that grow with perfect health. we do not need doctors or gyms or showers because we are healthy and strong and clean at all times. we are plants that live as humans. at the end of the day we bury our feet in soil and water ourselves. we are beautiful and we are plants. perfect in every way.

I am not Tobias. I am not going to get drunk and ignore the world. I am going to deal with things like he ******* should be. I don’t really know where to start… music, I guess. I put on one song from Foster the People, a slow one. One that makes me want to cry further, but at the same time, it makes me feel calm. A calm that says, “everything can stop now. You are sad, you are in a sad place, but it can stop for now and you can have a break.” For the first four times it plays, I don’t move. I sit in my blanket and gather myself. I wipe off the tears, I swallow the spit, I let the blood come back into my left foot, and I begin to breathe again. Tobias will come over tomorrow and things can figure themselves out later.

I go down to the freezer and I get out a banana flavored popsicle. I have always loved this flavor more than any of the others. It seems more real, more whole. That is something that I need to feel right now. I feel the popsicle with my tongue, and I let it consume me. I let it freeze my mouth, and I let it dribble over my teeth, and I feel it melt on the roof of my mouth. The song keeps playing in my bedroom, but loud enough that it isn’t in the background. I stand in my bedroom with only a faint light on, and I sway to the music. I hang my head as a tribute to my sadness, but I let one arm be free. I want something to feel free. The other hand holds the popsicle that now drips on the ground.

When the song slows, I just stare at the Popsicle drops, and I place my foot under them so that they can drip on me. I feel how cold they are and how sticky they will be later. I imagine the color of yellow that will stain my sheets. But mostly, I want to save the feeling. I want to save this sticky, sweet sadness that I feel right now. This jealous, angry, crying sadness. I want to know how it feels in the middle of the night to remind myself that I can always taste the Popsicle and feel okay. This Popsicle has saved me tonight from laying in bed and yelling about how much I hate him.

When the Popsicle is gone, I still hold the stick in my hand so I can examine the wood. I want to see the curve and the thickness and the words printed on it. I don’t read them. I don’t want to know. But I know that they are there. I never want to know what the words say, or what they did. I only want to know if there will be other words for me to read later. Will there be any words left for me tomorrow?

I feel like being messy. Sadness makes me messy. So I crawl into bed, holding the popsicle stick in my hand, making it sticky, and I ask somebody to help. I don’t ask god, because he has failed me for the very last time, and I don’t ask my parents, because this is something that needs to stay within me. So I pray deep into myself, the blue/green part of me that lives inside my mind and makes me strong. I pray to the blue/green to make me feel everything tomorrow. Let me feel the toothpaste that burns my tongue, let me feel the water be too hot tomorrow in the shower, and let me be so affected by The Fault in Our Stars that I cry and cry because I loved that character so much but at the same time I knew it had to happen. So, Blue/Green, let me feel everything that happens to me tomorrow, so that when it comes down to Tobias, it wont matter because I have all these other beautiful things to feel.

He opens the door to his house at 1:26 in the morning, and we try to sneak into the dark house without waking anyone up. His shoes are so quiet, he knows how to step quietly. But me, I’m too loud. I don’t know how to tip toe in these shoes, as hard as I try. Dear god, please let me be quieter. I don’t want to **** this up.

He puts the melted ice cream in the fridge with the other 4 cartons while I look at his fridge. There are only a few magnets but it is mostly blank. There are no pictures of him or his sister, and I wonder who he is.

He walks me to the door and kisses me for as long as I want, and then he hugs me tight. This is the first boy to hold me harder than I hold him. I want to hold him for as long as I can, but I know that he has to go to bed. This not about me. This is about him. Nothing is about me anymore and I feel relieved.

This is the boy who needs to be held tight, and I am the boy who desperately wants to hold him, except that I don’t know how tight.

His hair was tied loosely on the top of his head like he had done it quickly (several days ago). The same fingers that shape the clay when he leans over the wheel. The same long fingers that tap on the steering wheel to that song that he loves. The same fingers that close the door to his house every night, alone.

The man who creates has put himself into a shell under the premise of, “it’s for my art. The silence helps me become myself.” But the silence does not help him create. The silence ends up becoming pages and pages of past sadnesses that refuse to leave because he can not go out and get new experiences, neither happy nor sad. So he is left in his apartment waiting for something to happen that will inspire him, but secretly knowing that it never will.

One day, the artist will open all of his windows and sell all of his work, all the coil pots, slab boxes, and stories written on the paper that wasn’t meant to be serious, and he will decide that today is the day.

"This is a new chapter. My new work will be new."

Today, he will stop trying to use drugs to help him create. He will spend every weekend in the mountains for the next three months, focusing on his breathing and looking at the stars for beauty, and not for hidden meaning. He will meet one new person a day in an effort to find the little things that make their own fingers spin. He will stop smothering himself and he will force himself to just make something new, either with his life or with his art.

In retrospect, the art that he is creating now will be some of his best work because it displayed to himself the person that he was growing into.

The artist is fighting for his work and he is fighting for the beauty to be his own. He will begin to love himself.

There is nothing I desire more than to be in the mountains. I crave the moist air and the earthy scent. I want to sleep with the trees and cry onto their leaves. I want to feel the earth and know that I am the only one here right now. There is no yesterday or tomorrow, there are no more years and no more seconds. It is just me, trying to be feel clean while I look at the stars.

I know that I am clean. I know that I am whole. But Time and People are different than me, they are clean in a different way. They are also whole in a different way.

God ******!
****!

I want to get into a tent and feel myself completely. I want to be aware of my head and my body and my time and my space and my sound. So that, when I come out of that tent and when I taste that air, I will have recreated myself. I will have become that slate grey that I’ve always wanted to be, and I will just… Know.

You are the hair
that goes to sleep
With you every night.

You are the yoga
that rests under your skin when
You wake up in the
Morning.

You are the glasses that go
On and off
All day.

You are the big lips
That kiss me
On Fridays.

You are the hands
And the eyebrows
And the white car
And the green room
And the camera
And the thoughts
And the person,

Who is whole.
Who is intelligent.
Who is clean.
Who is whole.
Who is funny.
Who is complete.
Who is whole.

You are whole.

I am whole.

We are whole.

And there is nothing wrong
With being whole,
Each our own,
Each together,
Making two wholes,
Not a single half.