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Elliptical, Adj. The Kiss I Like The Most Is One Of The Slow Ones. It’s As Much Breath As Touch, As Much No As Yes. You Lean In From The Side, And I Have To Turn A Little To Make It Happen.

-David Levithan

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Elliptical, Adj. The Kiss

David Levithan

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Elliptical, Adj. The Kiss I Like The Most Is One Of The Slow Ones. It’s As Much Breath As Touch, As Much No As Yes. You Lean In From The Side, And I Have To Turn A Little To Make It Happen.

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Dissonance, N. Nights When I Need To Sleep And You Can't. Days When I Want To Talk To You And You Won't. Hours When Every Noise You Make Interferes With My Silence. Weeks When There Is A Buzzing In The Air, And We Both Pretend We Don't Here It.

Without You I Wouldn't Have Been Able To Contain The Hate. I Would Have Used It Against Myself. You're The One Who Helped Me Control It. My Mind Spun Out To Other Things. But It Always Came Back To You.

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It's One Of The Secrets Of Strength: We're So Much More Likely To Find It In The Service Of Others Than In Service To Ourselves.

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Everyone Tried With Me. And Everytime, It Felt Like The Whole Point Of Life Was To See If Trying Was Ever Enough.

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I Don't Get This At All. It's Like Protesting The Fact That Some People Are Red-haired.

You Can't Actually Have A Romance Between Friends. That Sort Of Defeats The Definition Of The Word "romance." The Word You're Looking For Is "love." It's A Love Between Friends, Just As There's Also Love Between Lovers, Or Possible Lovers, Or Even Ex-lovers. Same Holds True For "bromance" - It's Just A Clever Word Used To Avoid The Word Love, For Straight Boys Who Don't Want That Old-fashioned Taint Of Gayness. Dudes, You Love Each Other. Deal With It.

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Tiny: Did Someone Die? Me: Yeah, I Did. He Smiles Again At That. Tiny: Well, Then... Welcome To The Afterlife.

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Breathing, N You Had Asthma As A Child, Had To Carry Around An Inhaler. But When You Grew Older, It Went Away. You Could Run For Miles And It Was Fine. Sometimes I Worry That This Is Happening To Me In Reverse. The Older I Get, The More I Lose My Ability To Breathe.

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Geometric Shapes

I Have No Idea How He Knows When I Need Him. We Can Go Weeks Without Speaking, And Then, When My Blue Moods Threaten To Turn Black, He Will Show Up And Tell Me My Moods Are Azure Indigo Cerulean Cobalt Periwinkle And Suddenly The Blue Will Not Seem So Dark, More Like The Color Of A Noon-bright Sky. He Brings The Sun.

After Tiny Has Tried Ballerina Pose, Swing-batter-batter Pose, Pump-up-the-jam Pose, And Top-of-the-mountain-sound-of-music Pose In The Reflection Of The Bean, He Walks Us To A Bench Overlooking Lake Shore Drive.

And Just Like That, The Universe Goes Wrong. Just Like That, All The Enormity Seems To Shrink Into A Ball And Float Away From My Reach. I Feel It, And She Doesn't. Or I Feel It, And She Won't.

Because That's The Thing About Mean People: They Make You Think That The World Will Never Work, That There Are Divides That You Will Fall Into If You Approach. It Takes A Whole Lot Of Good People To Fill In The Breach Created By A Single Mean One.

I Know I Should Just Leave. Just Go. Because There's A Point Where A Mistake Turns Into A Big Mistake, And I Should Probably Come To My Senses Before I Get There.

This Is What I Never Allowed Myself To Need. And Of Course What I've Been Needing All Along.

But I Had A Feeling I Wasn't Supposed To Find Her That Way. She Was Not A Needle. This Was Not A Haystack. We Were People, And People Had Ways Of Finding Each Other.

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I Have Always Been Aware Of How I Break. I Know What Kind Of Situations Will Break Me. I Know What Kind Of People Will Do It. I Know How Much It Will Hurt.

Serrated, Adj. And You Said, "i'm Not Sure We Can.

So I Said I Wanted You To Stay, Even Though Nothing Could Stay The Same.

Told Her She Was Beautiful. Didn't Give Up When She Didn't Believe Me.

Are You Going To Be Playing For The Pure Thrill Of Unreluctant Desire?

But We Comforted Ourselves With What We Really Meant To Say, Which Was: "i Don't Normally Feel This Good About What I'm Doing." Measure The Hope Of That Moment, That Feeling. Everything Else Will Be Measured Against It.

Sharing Truth Is Not The Kind Of Gift That Comes In Wrapping Paper - Ripped Open Once And, There, You're Done. No, This Is A Gift That Must Be Unfolded.

I Had Gotten So Used To Being Alone, But Never Entirely Used To It. Never Used To It Enough To Stop Wanting The Alternative.

This Is Why We Call People Exes, I Guess - Because The Paths That Cross In The Middle End Up Separating At The End. It's Too Easy To See An X As A Cross-out. It's Not, Because There's No Way To Cross Out Something Like That. The X Is A Diagram Of Two Paths.

How Can You Spend Hours Every Day Trying In Small Ways To Figure Out Who You Are, Then Have A Near-stranger Give You A Sentence Of Yourself That Says It Better Than You Ever Could?

Happiness Is So Rarely A Part Of My Vocabulary, Because For Me It's So Fleeting

I Am Always Amazed By People Who Know Something Is Wrong But Still Insist On Ignoring It, As If That Will Somehow Make It Go Away. They Spare Themselves The Confrontation, But End Up Boiling In Resentment Anyway.

That No Matter What I Did, I Would Always Be Missing Something Else. And The Only Way To Live, The Only Way To Be Happy, Was To Make Sure The Things I Didn't Miss Meant More To Me Than The Things I Missed.

I Hope That George Doesn't Internalize Her Scare Tactics. I Want To Argue With Her, Tell Her That "sins Of The Flesh" Is Just A Control Mechanism -- If You Demonize A Person's Pleasure, Then You Can Control His Or Her Life. I Can't Say How Many Times This Tool Has Been Wielded Against Me, In A Variety Of Forms. But I See No Sin In A Kiss. I Only See Sin In The Condemnation.

I Think Of Friendship In Terms Of Love.

I Couldn't Remember Ordinary Moments, Only The Ones That Had Made An Impression. Ordinary Moments Were The Ones That Fell Away First.

It's Like You're A Character In This Book That Everyone Around You Is Writing, And Suddenly You Have To Say, 'i'm Sorry, But This Role Isn't Right For Me'. And You Have To Start Writing Your Own Life And Doing Your Own Thing.

This Might Be The Happy Ending Without The Ending

You Can't Deny That There's Something Between Us." "no. There Is. When I Saw You Today--i Didn't Know I'd Been Waiting For You Until You Were There. And Then All Of That Waiting Rushed Through Me In A Second. That's Something... But I Don't Know If It's Certainty.

Trying To Write About Love Is Ultimately Like Trying To Have A Dictionary Represent Life. No Matter How Many Words There Are, There Will Never Be Enough.

We Remember What It Was Like To Meet Someone New. We Remember What It Was Like To Grant Someone Possibility. You Look Out From Your Own World And Then You Step Into His, Not Really Knowing What You’ll Find There, But Hoping It Will Be Something Good. Both Ryan And Avery Are Doing This. You Step Into His World And You Don’t Even Realize Your Loneliness Is Missing. You’ve Left It Behind, And You Don’t Notice Because You Have No Desire To Turn Back.

I Text Tiny A Minute Later. Made New Gay Friend. And He Texts Back Progress!!!

The Key To A Successful Relationship Isn’t Just In The Words, It’s In The Choice Of Punctuation. When You’re In Love With Someone, A Well-placed Question Mark Can Be The Difference Between Bliss And Disaster, And A Deeply Respected Period Or A Cleverly Inserted Ellipsis Can Prevent All Kinds Of Exclamations.

The Unwarranted Devotion. Putting Up With The Fear Of Being With The Wrong Person Because You Can't Deal With The Fear Of Being Alone. The Hope Tinged With Doubt, And The Doubt Tinged With Hope. Every Time I See These Feelings In Someone Else's Face, It Weighs Me Down.

I Have Taken Advantage Of Other People's Weaknesses In Order To Cover My Own.

I Try To Be A Careful Person. Most Of The Time My Carelessness Is Completely Unintentional.

It Is Much Harder To Lie To Someone's Face. But. It Is Also Much Harder To Tell The Truth To Someone's Face.

Telling The Truth

Indelible, Adj. That First Night, You Took Your Finger And Pointed To The Top Of My Head, Then Traced A Line Between My Eyes, Down My Nose, Over My Lips, My Chin, My Neck, To The Center Of My Chest. It Was So Surprising. I Knew I Would Never Mimic It. That One Gesture Would Be Yours Forever.

For Whatever Reason, We Like To Focus On The 2 Percent That's Different, And Most Of The Conflict In The World Comes From That.

Underneath All That Denial, You're Someone Who's Deeply, Deeply Nice.

The Tenderness Between Two People Can Turn The Air Tender, The Room Tender, Time Itself Tender. As I Step Out Of Bed And Slip On An Oversize Shirt, Everything Around Me Feels Like It's The Temperature Of Happiness.

I Don't Even Know What I'm Looking For, Although I Hope I'll Know It If I Find It Along The Way. Sometimes I Want To Simplify My Life Into A Simple Bare Thing. And Other Times I Want To Complicate It So Thoroughly That Everything I Touch Will Become Bound In Some Way To Me. I've Become Quite Aware Of My Contradictions, But There's No True Resolution In That.

I Would Always Wait To Take You Home.

For I Have Never Wanted A Lover, But I Have Always Wanted To Love, And To Be Loved.

Let’s Always Love Each Other, And Never Be In Love With Each Other.

Love Each Other

That Word Again. Happy. It’s A Curse. The Pursuit Of Happiness Makes Us Deeply Unhappy. It’s A Trap.before Anything Else Happened, There Was Me In Bed, Thinking Of Who You Used To Be. I Don’t Want You To Think I Forgot.

Pursuit Of Happiness

Moments Into Minutes. Minutes Into Hours. Hours Into Days. Days Into Years. Years Into Possibility. This Will Linger.

I Have To Cross The River Of Extreme Awkwardness In Order To Get To The Paradise On The Other Side.

My Pride Shut Me Up, My Hurt Shut Me Down, And Together They Ganged Up On My Hope And Let Her Get Away.

I Am Proud That I Defy Your Categories. I Am Proud That I Don't Fit Easily Into Any Box. I Am Proud Of All The Things I Am And All The Things I Can Be. Question Yourself Every Time You Think You Only See One Thing In Me.

I Always Think Of Each Night As A Song. Or Each Moment As A Song. But Now I'm Seeing We Don't Live In A Single Song. We Move From Song To Song, From Lyric To Lyric, From Chord To Chord. There Is No Ending Here. It's An Infinite Playlist.

He Never Wears A Watch (his Own Rebellion Against Time, Against Watching).

When I Am With You, There Is Nowhere Else I'd Rather Be. And I Am A Person Who Always Wants To Be Somewhere Else.

Iv. Who Was It Who Invented Size Zero? Who Was It Who Promised That If You Got To A Certain Point You Would No Longer Be?

When We’re Alone Together, I’m The Destination. When I’m Here In Her Life At School, I’m The Disruption.

I Am A Drifter, And As Lonely As That Can Be, It Is Also Remarkably Freeing. I Will Never Define Myself In Terms Of Anyone Else. I Will Never Feel The Pressure Of Peers Or The Burden Of Parental Expectation. I Can View Everyone As Pieces Of A Whole, And Focus On The Whole, Not The Pieces. I Have Learned To Observe, Far Better Than Most People Observe. I Am Not Blinded By The Past Or Motivated By The Future. I Focus On The Present Because That Is Where I Am Destined To Live.

When You Need To Hold Onto Something, You Should. Whatever Gets You Through, Take It.

To Love--to Fall--is Not A Question. To Touch--to Kiss--to Speak--those Are Questions.

Now, I Don't Believe In Doing Hugs Halfway. I Can't Stand People Who Try To Hug Without Touching. A Hug Should Be A Full Embrace - As I Wrap My Arms Around Tony, I Am Not Just Holding Him, But Also Trying To Lift Off His Troubles For A Moment So That The Only Thing He Can Feel Is My Presence, My Support.

He Is Much Stronger Than I Think I Am. He Is Mischievous, Outgoing, Ready To Soar Through The Clouds, While I Often Feel Like The Cloud Itself.

I See Nick's Number. I Debate Whether To Assign A Name To His Number. If I Commit To That, Then I Will Truly Be Heartbroken If He Never Calls Me Again; My Heart Will Knot Each And Every Time I Use This Phone And See His Name In There. I Would Probably End Up Having To Trash The Phone Entirely.

Anchor, V.: I Drift, I Drift, I Drift, You Stay.

All This Hoping For Something- Or Someone- That's Maybe Hopeless. I'm Having A Hard Time Processing What I Am Supposed To Believe, Or If I'm Even Supposed To. There Is Too Much Information, And I Don't Like A Lot Of It.

Hoping For Something

They Defy Gravity, As Good Books Should.

Me: Just Don't Ask About His Forty-three Ex-boyfriends, Okay? Or Ask Him About Why He's Carrying Around An Axe. Mom:... Me: I'm Kidding About The Axe Part.

... I Love Books About Freaks," Because I Am One. You Might Be, Too. Let's Be Freaks Together?

By The Time I Got There, You’d Already Decided. And I Quickly Decided To Let You Decide. You Were Already Seeing The Rooms As Ours, And That Was Enough For Me.

We Didn't Believe In Fate, But We Believed In Serendipity. We Felt Very Lucky.

If You Tell Me, I Will Leave You Alone," I Said. "and If You Don't Tell Me, I Am Going To Grab The Nearest Ghostwritten James Patterson Romance Novel And I Am Going To Follow You Through This Store Reading It Out Loud Until You Relent. Would You Prefer Me To Read From Daphne's Three Tender Months With Harold Or Cindy And John's House Of Everlasting Love? I Guarantee, Your Sanity And Your Indie Street Cred Won't Last A Chapter. And They Are Very, Very Short Chapters." Now I Could See The Fright Beneath The Defiance.

Things Are Going So Well. We’re Volleying Words Back And Forth. Everything She Says, I Have Something I Can Say Back. We’re Sparking, And Part Of Me Just Wants To Sit Back And Watch. We’re Clicking. Not Because A Part Of Me Is Fitting Into A Part Of Her. But Because Our Words Are Clicking Into Each Other To Form Sentences And Our Sentences Are Clicking Into Each Other To Form Dialogue And Our Dialogue Is Clicking Together To Form This Scene From This Ongoing Movie That’s As Comfortable As It Is Unrehearsed.

Danger Comes In Many Forms, I Suppose. For Some People, It Might Be Jumping Off A Bridge Or Climbing Impossible Moutains. For Others, It Could Be A Tawdry Love Affair Or Telling Off A Mean-looking Bus Driver Because He Doesn't Like To Stop For Noisy Teenagers. It Could Be Cheating At Cards Or Eating A Peanut Even Though You're Allergic. For Me, Danger Might Be Getting Out From The Protective Cloak Of My Family And Venturing Into The World More Of My Own, Even Though I Don't Know What- Or Who- Awaits Me.

Such A Strange Thing, To Hold A Six-year-old's Hand. Especially A Six-year-old You've Only Just Met. A Toddler Will Grab Hold Of Your Finger, And Someone Your Own Age Will Clasp On To Your Whole Hand, But With Six-year-olds It's Something In Between, This Acknowledgment That They Can't Be The One To Take Hold, So You Have To Do All The Holding, Folding Your Hand Around Theirs, Feeling So Much Bigger And Responsible.

When Is A Night Over? Is It The Start Of Sunrise Or The End Of It? Is It When You Finally Go To Sleep Or Simply Realize That You Have To? When The Club Closes Or When You Everyone Leaves? "it's Over When You Decide It's Over," She Says. "when You Call It A Night. The Rest Is Just A Matter Of Where The Sun Is In The Sky.

I Was Sixteen And Equipped With The Appropriate Genitalia, So I Cleared That Hurdle Nicely.

I've Lost Track Of Where Friendship Ends And Falling Begins. (this Is The Foolish Refrain Of The Hopelessly Devoted.) There Are Times I Want To Kiss You Midsentence. Undo The Not-doing With One Gesture.

With Some People ,the Minute You Start Talking, It Feels Like You've Known Them For Years. It Only Means That You Were Supposed To Meet Sooner. You're Feeling All The Time You Should Have Known Each Other, But Didn't. That Time Still Counts. You Can Definitely Feel It.

I Can Take Everything On Her Face At Face Value, And That's Valuable In A Friend.

I Think That If You Were Somehow Able To Measure The Weight Of Human Kindness, It Would Have Weighed More On 9/11 Than It Ever Had. On 9/11, All The Hatred And Murder Could Not Compare With The Weight Of Love, Of Bravery, Of Caring. I Have To Believe That.

I Was Horribly Bookish, To The Point Of Coming Right Out And Saying It, Which I Knew Was Not Socially Acceptable. I Particularly Loved The Adjective Bookish, Which I Found Other People Used About As Often As Ramrod Or Chum Or Teetotaler.

Why Do We Feel The Need To Disconnect In Order To Connect?

I Am Learning That A Life Isn't Real Unless Someone Else Knows Its Reality. And I Want My Life To Be Real.

You See, Dash -- I Was Never The Girl In Your Head. And You Were Never The Boy In My Head. I Think We Both Knew That. It's Only When We Try To Make The Girl Or Boy In Our Head Real That The True Trouble Comes. I Did That With Carlos, And It Was A Bad Failure. Be Careful What You're Doing, Because No One Is Ever Who You Want Them To Be. And The Less You Really Know Them, The More Likely You Are To Confuse Them With The Girl Or Boy In Your Head.

Elliptical, Adj. The Kiss I Like The Most Is One Of The Slow Ones. It’s As Much Breath As Touch, As Much No As Yes. You Lean In From The Side, And I Have To Turn A Little To Make It Happen.

We Just Want To Walk. Our Legs Need To Move To Keep Our Minds From Collapsing.

His Books Are Kept On Freestanding Shelves Hung At Different Angles On A Sea-green Wall. They Defy Gravity, As Good Books Should.

Our Moments Are Music, And Sometimes – Just Sometimes – We Can Catch Them And Put Them Into Some Lasting Form. If We Didn’t Have Music, I Don’t Think We Could Ever Be Truly Happy, And If We Didn’t Have Special Moments, We Would Never Find Music.

It Is An Awful Thing To Be Betrayed By Your Body. And It’s Lonely, Because You Feel You Can’t Talk About It.

If You Want To Live Within The Definition Of Your Own Truth, You Have To Choose To Go Through The Initially Painful And Ultimately Comforting Process Of Finding It.

I Had Always Felt That Mittens Were A Few Steps Back On The Evolutionary Scale-- Why, I Wondered, Would We Want To Make Ourselves Into A Less Agile Version Of Lobster.

Why Won't They Leave Me Alone? Don't They Realize I Have A Tinder Heart And A Paper Body And That Any Spark Will Turn Me Straight To Ash?

I Couldn't Fault Her For Believing, Because I Had To Imagine I Was Nice To Have That Illusion Still Intact.

My Main Piece Of Advice Would Be Dont Worry About Being Published - Just Write A Really Good Book, But Also Dont Be Afraid To Write A Bad Book. Give Yourself Permission To Fail, And Dont Be Afraid.

He Doesn’t Just Look Upset—he Looks Newly Blind. There Is Such Loss In His Eyes, And It Permeates Every Other Part Of His Body.

It Doesn't Feel Like A Date. It Doesn't Feel Like Friendship. It Feels Like Something That Fell Off The Tightrope But Hasn't Yet Hit The Net.

She Asked Me What Was Wrong, And I Told Her I Had To End It. She Was Surprised, And Asked My Why I Thought So. I Told Her It Wasn't A Thought, More A Feeling, Like I Couldn't Breathe And Knew I Had To Get Some Air. It Was A Survival Instinct, I Told Her. She Said It Was Time For Dinner. Then She Sat Me Down And Told Me Not To Worry. She Said Moments Like This Were Like Waking Up In The Middle Of The Night: You're Scared, Your'e Disoriented, And You're Completely Convinced You're Right. But Then You Stay Awake A Little Longer And You Realize Things Aren't As Fearful As They Seem.

I Will Be The One To Leave You.

Things Are Not Magical Because They've Been Conjured For Us By Some Outside Force. They Are Magical Because We Create Them.

Once Time Is Lit, It Will Burn Whether Or Not You're Breathing It In. Even After Smoke Becomes Air, There Is The Memory Of Smoke. I Am Seeing As If By The Light Of A Match, A Glimpse Of My Life And Having It Feel Right.

We Gather The Things We Learned, And They Don't Nearly Add Up To Fill The Space Of A Life. You Will Miss The Taste Of Froot Loops. You Will Miss The Sound Of Traffic. You Will Miss Your Back Against His. You Will Miss Him Stealing The Sheets. Do Not Ignore These Things.

I Just Needed To Realize That Style Was Like Personality - It Didn't Always Have To Be Consistent; It Just Had To Be Something You Lived With.

The Older You Get, The Wiser You Are - This Is True. But You Also Question What Use This Wisdom Is.y

There Has To Be A Moment At The Beginning When You Wonder Whether You’re In Love With The Person Or In Love With The Feeling Of Love Itself.

We Are So Used To Releasing Words. We Don't Know What To Do With Them If They Stay.

You Don't Know, But I'm Noticing.

Then I Go In The Den And Turn On Law & Order, Since The Only Thing I Can Really Count On In Life Is That Whenever I Turn On The Tv, There Will Be A Law & Order Episode.

In Sliding Doors, The Whole Idea Is That Every Choice You Make, And Every Single Thing That Happens To You Changes The Trajectory Of Your Life, And Once You Are Put On That Trajectory, There Is No Way Back. But Groundhog Day - Which, I Tell Him, Also Happens To Be A Much Better Movie - Says The Opposite. It Says If You Mess Up Or Make The Wrong Choice, You Just Have To Keep At It Until You Do It Right.

I Can Flirt With The Best Of Them, But Only When It Doesn't Matter.

Let’s Make Plans,” I Ventured. And Sofia Smiled And Said, “no, Let’s Leave It To Chance.

This Is As Much A Part Of My Story As Anything Else. Friendship Is Love As Much As Any Romance.

You Were In Sweden?" Boomer Asked. "no," I Said. "the Trip Got Called Off At The Last Minute. Because Of Political The Unrest" "in Sweden?" Priya Seemed Skeptical. "yeah-isn't It Strange How The Times Isn't Covering It? Half The Country's On Strike Because Of That Thing The Crown Prince Said About Pippi Longstocking Which Means No Meatballs For Christmas, If You Know What I Mean." "that's So Sad!" Boomer Said.

Gravity, N. I Imagine You Saved My Life. And Then I Wonder If I'm Just Imagining It.

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Leonard Peikoff

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