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...he Hopes That Maybe It'll Make People A Little Less Scared Of Two Boys Kissing Than They Were Before, And A Little More Welcoming To The Idea That All People Are, In Fact, Born Equal, No Matter Who They Kiss Or Screw, No Matter What Dreams They Have Or Love They Give.

-David Levithan

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...he Hopes That Maybe

David Levithan

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...he Hopes That Maybe It'll Make People A Little Less Scared Of Two Boys Kissing Than They Were Before, And A Little More Welcoming To The Idea That All People Are, In Fact, Born Equal, No Matter Who They Kiss Or Screw, No Matter What Dreams They Have Or Love They Give.

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Because What's The Point Of Something Virtual If It Doesn't End Up Being Real?

This Is A Difference Between Us: You Desire What Other People Have, While I Desire The Things I Used To Have, Or Think I Might Have One Day.

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.

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

School Is School-she Wants It To Be Over, But She's Afraid Of It Being Over, Because Then She'll Have To Figure Out What Comes Next.

And Still, For All The Jealously, All The Doubt, Sometimes I Will Be Struck With A Kind Of Awe That We're Together. That Someone Like Me Could Find Someone Like You --- It Renders Me Wordless. Because Surely Words Would Conspire Against Such Luck, Would Protest The Unlikelihood Of Such A Turn Of Events.

I Think Of Friendship In Terms Of Love.

"i Want You To Spend The Night," You Said. And It Was Definitely Your Phrasing That Ensured It. If You Had Said, "let's Have Sex," Or "let's Go To My Place," Or Even "i Really Want You," I'm Not Sure We Would Have Gone Quite As Far As We Did. But I Loved The Notion That The Night Was Mine To Spend, And I Immediately Decided To Spend It With You.

Her Vulnerability Is Open, But She’s Safe Within It.

When First Love Ends, Most People Eventually Know There Will Be More To Come. They Are Not Through With Love. Love Is Not Through With Them. It Will Never Be The Same As The First, But It Will Be Better In Different Ways.

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.

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.

You Know, I'd Get A Tattoo With Your Name On It. Only, I Want You To Have The Freedom To Change Your Name If You Want To.

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

Fraught, Adj. Does Every “i Love You” Deserve An “i Love You Too”? Does Every Kiss Deserve A Kiss Back? Does Every Night Deserve To Be Spent On A Lover? If The Answer To Any Of These Is “no,” What Do We Do?

It Felt Good To Be Surrounded By Books, By All This Solid Knowledge, By These Objects That Could Be Ripped Page By Page But Couldn't Be Torn If The Pages All Held Together.

You Never Get Involved In The People's Lives? The Ones You're Inhabiting?" I Shake My Head. "you Try To Leave The Lives The Way You Found Them." "yeah." "but What About Justin? What Made That So Different?" "you," I Say.

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

That's What The Voices In Your Head Are For, To Get You Through The Silent Parts.

I Never Felt The Urge To Jump Off A Bridge, But There Are Times I Have Wanted To Jump Out Of My Life, Out Of My Skin.

She Stays In The Same Spot, Anchored By The Profound, Desperate Loneliness Of A Bad Relationship.

Bad Relationship

I Suspected That What Happens In Hotel Rooms Rarely Lasts Outside Of Them. I Suspected That When Something Was A Beginning And An Ending At The Same Time, That Meant It Could Only Exist In The Present.

If You Want To Be Loved, Be A Lovable. It's A Good Place To Start.

You Ask Me What I'm Looking For, And I Outline You. You Don't Recognize The Shape, Offer Other Names. You Say My Time Will Come, And I Hope.

I Wish I Were Someone Else, Even Though I Know I'll Never, Ever Be Able To Get Away From What I've Done And What's Been Done To Me.

And Who Am I To Blow Against The Wind?

And As We Drift Into Sleep, I Feel Something I’ve Never Felt Before. A Closeness That Isn’t Merely Physical. A Connection That Defies The Fact That We’ve Only Just Met. A Sensation That Can Only Come From The Most Euphoric Of Feelings: Belonging.

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.

I Saw His Scars - The Visible Ones-and Saw How Breaking Him Had Not Made Him Any Less Beautiful. If Anything, He Stood Stronger, Because He'd Survived.

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

Here's What Breaks Us: Even Though We Know Better, We Still Want Everything To Be All Right.

I Know There Are Epic Tales Of Romance, Where Love Means You're Supposed To Die. Where It's All About Sacrifice. But I Don't Want To Die. I Don't Want Stephen To Die. I'm Looking For The Scenario Where We Both Get To Live. Where We Can Continue This Marvel That Is Love And Discovery And Trust.

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.

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

I Am Like The Fish In The Aquarium, Thinking In A Different Language, Adapting To A Life That’s Not My Natural Habitat. I Am The People In The Other Cars, Each With His Or Her Own Story, But Passing Too Quickly To Be Noticed Or Understood.

And I Told You: I Think Of A Photograph You Took Of Me, Up In Montreal. You Told Me To Jump In The Air, So In The Picture, My Feet Are Off The Ground. Later, I Asked You Why You Wanted Me To Do That, And You Told Me It Was The Only Way To Get Me To Forget About The Expression On My Face. You Were Right. I Am Completely Unposed, Completely Genuine. In My Mind’s Eye, I Picture Myself Like That, Reacting To You.

I Barely Notice Colors Unless I Taste Them. Not The Yellows Or The Greens. I Taste The Deeper Blues. The Darker Reds.

I Don't Want To Steal Anybody's Story. I Very Much Want To Use The Stories That I Hear To Get Lost In My Mind, To Tell A Larger Story.

When It Comes To True Dance, It's Not About How You Look, It's All About The Joy You Feel.

I Measure The Moment In The Heartbeats I Skip

It Feels Like We’ve Stepped Outside Of Time. Even Though There Is No Such Place.

Being With Someone For Over A Year Can Mean That You Love Them … But It Can Also Mean You’re Trapped.

I See No Sin In A Kiss. I Only See Sin In The Condemnation

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Ignorance Is Not Bliss. Bliss Is Knowing The Full Meaning Of What You Have Been Given.

That's What It Felt Like - That If I Let A Little Of The Hurt Out, It Would Keep Pouring Out Until I Was A Deflated Balloon Of A Person, With A Big Monster Of Hurt In Front Of Me.

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.

You Spend So Much Time, So Much Effort, Trying To Hold Yourself Together. And Then Everything Falls Apart Anyway.

But I Think We Both Knew, Even Then, That What We Had Was Something Even More Rare, And Even More Meaningful. I Was Going To Be His Friend, And Was Going To Show Him Possibilities. And He, In Turn, Would Become Someone I Could Trust More Than Myself.

Game Over," You Say, And I Don't Know Which I Take More Exception To-- The Fact That You Say Its Over, Or The Fact That You Say It's A Game.

Magic Naturally Fades Over Distance. But Proximity - Well, When It Works, Proximity Amplifies Magic.

You’d Think That Silence Would Be Peaceful. But Really, It’s Painful.

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Placid, Adj. Sometimes I Love It When We Just Lie On Our Backs, Gaze Off, Stay Still.

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

It's Gonna Hurt Because It Matters.

You Don't Realize - The Great Thing About Change Is How Quickly We Get Used To It. So I'm Not Complaining. The More Things Change,the More They Don't Stay The Same. Don't Let Anyone Tell You Otherwise. They Might Not Change Everywhere All At Once - But There Are Moments When The Impossible Becomes The Inevitable, And The Rest Is Just A Matter Of Time.

After Working For So Long On Being Sure Of Each Other, Sure Of This Thing, Suddenly We Were Unsure Again.

When Dawn Looked At Vic, She Saw Vic Exactly As He Wanted To Be Seen. Whereas Vic's Parents Couldn't Help Seeing Who He Used To Be, And So Many Friends And Strangers Couldn't Help Seeing Who He Didn't Want To Be Anymore, Dawn Only Saw Him. Call It A Blur If You Want, But Dawn Didn't See A Blur. She Saw A Very Distinct, Very Clear Person.

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This Is What My Voice Sounds Like I Don't Need To Be Talking To Someone Else To Hear It

A Year. A Thousand Kisses. And Now A Thousand One, A Thousand Two. There Are So Many Other Place We Could Have Ended Up, But I Have To Believe None Of Them Would Have Felt This Right. "all I Want Is You" Is Not Entirely True. I Want So Much More, And With You I Think I Can Get It.

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Just Because A Person Is Beautiful Doesn't Mean There's No Soul Beneath. Doesn't Mean That Person Hasn't Suffered Like Everyone Else, Doesn't Mean They Don't Hope To Still Be A Good Human Being In An Awful World.

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

Breathing Is Hard. When You Cry So Much, It Makes You Realize That Breathing Is Hard.

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

This Is The Thing They Don't Tell You About Being A Third Wheel - It's Not Like You're The Wheel That's Added On. You Were One Of The Original Two Wheels, But Suddenly You're Not So Important Anymore. The Relationship Drives Fine Without You.

Yesterday Is Another World. I Want To Go Back There.

It Was One Of Those Moments When You Feel The Future So Much That It Humbles The Present.

Family, Like Arsenic, Works Best In Small Doses...unless You Prefer To Die.

Maybe Tonight You're Scared Of Falling, And Maybe There's Somebody Here Or Somewhere Else You're Thinking About, Worrying Over, Fretting Over, Trying To Figure Out If You Want To Fall, Or How And When You're Gonna Land, And I Gotta Tell You, Friends, To Stop Thinking About The Landing, Because It's All About Falling.

I Want To Take Back The Secrets I Told You So I Can Decide Now Whether To Tell Them To You Again. I Want To Take Back The Piece Of Me That Lies In You, To See If I Truly Miss It. I Want To Take Back At Least Half The “i Love You”s, Because It Feels Safer That Way.

It Is Hard To Stop Seeing Your Son As A Son And To Start Seeing Him As A Human Being. It Is Hard To Stop Seeing Your Parents As Parents And To Start Seeing Them As Human Beings. It's A Two-sided Transition, And Very Few People Manage It Gracefully.

This Is The Trap Of Having Something To Live For: Everything Else Seems Lifeless.

Hubris, N. Every Time I Call You Mine, I Feel Like I'm Forcing It, As If Saying It Can Make It So. As If I'm Reminding You, And Reminding The Universe: Mine. As If That One Word From Me Could Have That Kind Of Power.

Now When I Have To Remember A Date, All I Have To Do Is Consult My Rap Sheet.

I Don't Want To Fall. All I Want To Do Is Stand On Solid Ground.

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

Instead I Head To The Computer And It's Like I Turn Into A Little Girl Who's Just Seen Her First Rainbow. I Get All Giddy And Nervous And Hopeful And Despairing And I Tell Myself Not To Look Obsessively At My Buddy List, But It Might As Well Be Projected Onto The Insides Of My Eyelids. At 8:05 His Name Pops Up, And I Start To Count. I Only Get To Twelve Before His Im Pops Up.

You Can Give Words, But You Can't Take Them. And When Words Are Given, That Is When They Are Shared. We Remember What That Was Like. Words So Real They Were Almost Tangible. There Are Conversations You Remember, For Certain. But More Than That, There Is The Sensation Of Conversation. You Will Remember That, Even When The Precise Words Begin To Blur.

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

You Existed. You Existed Now As A Fractal. Definition: A Fractal Is Generally A Rough Or Fragmented Geometric Shape That Can Be Broken Into Parts, Each Of Which Is (at Least Approximately) A Reduced-size Copy Of The Whole. Maybe I Was A Fractal. Maybe The Photographer Was A Fractal. Maybe We Were All Fractals.

Geometric Shapes

And I, Who Have Never Thought In Terms Of A Life, Think To Myself That I Could Make A Life Out Of This.

Detachment, N. Even When I Detach, I Care. You Can Be Separate From A Thing And Still Care About It.

I Learn About The Highs And Lows Of Living With The Same Mother For Your Entire Life, About How No One Can Make You Angrier, But How You Can't Really Love Anyone More.

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

No Matter How Happy We Are, No Matter How Much We Want Our Night To Stretch Out Infinitely, Sleep Is Inevitable.

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.

This Blue Shirt I Have Is Practically The Same Color As My Jeans, And Looking All-blue Is Something Only Cookie Monster Can Pull Off.

Our Lives Change. Our Feelings For Each Other Change. Our Bearings Change. The Song Changes. The Air Changes. The Temperature Of The Shower Changes. Accept This. We Must Accept This.

I've Always Known I Was Gay, But It Wasn't Confirmed Until I Was In Kindergarten. It Was My Teacher Who Said So. It Was Right There On My Kindergarten Report Card: Paul Is Definitely Gay And Has Very Good Sense Of Self.

Even Though It Was Hard To See You, It Was Good To See You.

I Find I Very Rarely Live Up To My Words. And Since You Know Me Primarily Through My Words, There Are Oh So Many Ways I Can Disappoint.

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

She Transforms Once Again Into Someone Carefree, And I Transform Into Someone Whose Only Care Is Her.

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

I Want To Write My Life. I Want To Be Able To Write My Life. You Are A Second Away From Saying It. You Have No Idea How Much I Love You.

Love Is Tied To Truth. I Think Of Them As Unhappily Conjoined Twins.

Tiny: But There Is The Word, This Word Phil Wrayson Taught Me Once: Weltschmerz. It's The Depression You Feel When The World As It Is Does Not Line Up With The World As You Think It Should Be. I Live In A Big Goddamned Weltzschermz Ocean, You Know? And So Do You.

I Felt Like I Was Missing Something. Missing You More. Missing Whatever Was Going To Happen Next.

It's As If When You Love Someone, They Become Your Reason. And Maybe I've Gotten It Backward, Maybe It's Just Because I Need A Reason That I Find Myself Falling In Love With Her. But I Don't Think That's It. I Think I Would Have Continued Along, Oblivious, If I Hadn't Happened To Meet Her.

Falling In Love

When You Love Someone

We Love And We Feel And We Try And We Hope.

If You Stare At The Center Of The Universe, There Is Coldness There. A Blankness. Ultimately, The Universe Doesn't Care About Us. Time Doesn't Care About Us. That's Why We Have To Care About Each Other.

Stanchion, N. I Don't Want To Be The Strong One, But I Don't Want To Be The Weak One Either. Why Does It Feel Like It's Always One Or The Other? When We Embrace, One Of Us Is Always Holding The Other A Little Tighter.

This Is Not Something Insignificant. This Is Real. This Is Happening, And This Is Ours.

Maybe Your History Just Repeats And Repeats Until It Batters You Enough To Snap The Seams That Hold You Together

In My Experience, Desire Is Desire, Love Is Love.

There Comes A Time When The Body Takes Over The Life. There Comes A Time When The Body’s Urges, The Body’s Needs, Dictate The Life. You Have No Idea You Are Giving The Body The Key. But You Hand It Over. And Then It’s In Control. You Mess With The Wiring And The Wiring Takes Charge.

Part Of Growing Up Is Making Sure Your Sense Of Reality Isn't Entirely Grounded In Your Own Mind.

I Want My Own Books To Have Their Own Shelves," You Said, And That's How I Knew It Would Be Okay To Live Together.

The Clock Always Ticks. There Are Times You Don't Hear It, And There Are Times That You Do.

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

There Is No Such Thing As Equality For Some. Equality Must Be For All. That Is What Freedom Is. That Is What Liberty Is. No Human Being Is Born More Or Less Important Than Any Other. How Can We Allow Ourselves To Forget That? What Simpler Truth Is There?

These Words Are Now Mine, But Soon They’ll Be Ours.

Once The Storm Comes Out, The Landscape Changes. What You Had Before Is Altered In Some Way. And You Have A Choice: Build Something New And Better From What Is Left Or Abandon It.

There Is The Sudden. There Is The Eventual. And In Between, There Is The Living.

It Will Affect Me In Ways I Can't Even Begin To Get My Mind Around. This Day Is A Dark Crater. There Is No Room For Songs. The Songs Are Wrong. Every Song Is Wrong. And I Don't Know What To Do Without Music.

This Is What A Memorial Is: Standing Still, Staring At Something That Isn’t Ther

You Make It A Production. Slam Doors. Knock Things Over. Scream. But I Just Leave. Even If I'm Still Standing There, I Leave. I Am Refusing You. I Am Denying You. I Am An Adjective That Is Quickly Turning Into A Noun.

That's The Problem With Having A Moral Code. We Want To Destroy The Jerkish Part Of The Jerks, But We Want To Save The Human Being Underneath.

There Are Few Things Harder Than Being Born Into The Wrong Body.

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 Think One Of The Highest Compliments You Can Give A Person Is That When You Are Talking To Him, You Are Not Thinking About The Fact That You Are Talking To Him. That Is, Your Thoughts And Words All Exist On A Single, Engaged Level. You Are Being Yourself Because You Aren't Bothering To Think About Who You Should Be. It Is Like When You Talk In A Dream.

I'm Not Good At Relationships I Always Manage To Find The Flaws Sometimes In Others But Mostly My Own. I Foretell The Ending Then Go And Create The Cause Save Myself And End Up Alone

It Feels Like I Am Wasting Time. I Mean, That's Always The Case. My Life Doesn't Add Up To Anything.

I Was Attempting To Write The Story Of My Life. It Wasn't So Much About Plot. It Was Much More About Character.

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

Knowledge Is The Only Thing I Take With Me When I Go.

I Am Here Because Of Love.

Maybe There Is Hope In The Fragments, That What Is Lost Can Always Be Filled In By Someone Who Knows.

What A Strange Phrase — –not Seeing Other People. As If It’s Been Constructed To Be A Lie. We See Other People All The Time. The Question Is What We Do About It.

Self-esteem Can Be So Exhausting. I Want To Cut My Hair, Change My Clothes, Erase The Pimple From The Near-tip Of My Nose, And Strengthen My Upper-arm Definition, All In The Next Hour.

I Want To Take Back At Least Half Of The “i Love You”s, Because I Didn’t Mean Them As Much As The Other Ones.

You Think You Know Your Possibilities. Then Other People Come Into Your Life And Suddenly There Are So Many More.

Dispel, V. It Was The Way You Said, “i Have Something To Tell You.” I Could Feel The Magic Drain From The Room.

There Are Things I Miss," You Said. "but If I Didn't Have You, I'd Miss More.

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

We Do Not Start As Dust. We Do Not End As Dust. We Make More Than Dust. That's All We Ask Of You. Make More Than Dust.

The Word I Think Of Is Precarious. I Am Struck By How Precarious It All Is. How The Things That Hold Us Are Only As Strong As The Faith We Have In Them.

...and Suddenly You Started Singing Out Your Love For Me. My Name And Everything, Loud Enough To Reach The Top Floors Of All The Buildings. I Should Have Told You To Stop, But I Didn’t Want You To Stop. I Didn’t Mind If Your Love For Me Woke People Up. I Didn’t Mind If It Somehow Sneaked Into Their Sleep.

I Immediately Suspected There Was Much More To It Than Was Being Said.

I Am Made For Running. Because When You Run, You Could Be Anyone. You Hone Yourself Into A Body, Nothing More Or Less Than A Body. You Respond As A Body, To The Body. If You Are Racing To Win, You Have No Thoughts But The Body's Thoughts, No Goals But The Body's Goals. You Obliterate Yourself In The Name Of Speed. You Negate Yourself In Order To Make It Past The Finish Line.

It Was Like Everyone Suddenly Knew What Mattered. Money Didn't Matter. Politics Didn't Matter. Tabloid News Didn't Matter. No-compassion Mattered. Calm Mattered. Respect Mattered. Did It Really Take Something Of This Magnitude To Make Us Realize This?

Let Me Hold On To This The Way It Was, Before I Knew Anything Else.

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.

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.

I Don’t Want To Know Anything, And I Want To Know It All

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

When Someone Breaks Up With You, Their Beauty-- Which You Took Such Satisfaction In-- Suddenly Becomes Unfair.

Deep Down, You See, I Long To Be Arcane, Esoteric. I Would Love To Confound People With Their Own Language.

It's Goodbye To Some Things. And Hello To Others.

I Am Jealous Of Anyone Who Can Make Other People Care So Much.

I'm Not A Very Happy Person," I Told Him."but Sometimes I Can Trick Myself Into Thinking I Am.

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

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.

That Lasting Things Do, In Fact, Last.

There Is Certainty In A Ring. The Non-ending, The Non-beginning. The Ongoing. The Way It Holds On To You Not Because It's Fastened Or Stretched Or Adhered. It Holds On Because It Fits.

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?

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

I Think They Have Compatible Silences.

So What Do You Have To Confess Now?" I Don't Know Why I'm Saying Any Of This, Except That Is The Truth. "i'm Confessing That I Don't Know If I'm Ready For This." "what Is 'this'?" "being Open. Being Hurt. Liking. Not Being Liked. Seeing The Flicker On. Seeing The Flicker Off. Leaping. Falling. Crashing.

We Pencil-sketch Our Previous Life So We Can Contrast It To The Technicolor Of The Moment.

Gone Is Not Forgotten, But Our Lives Cannot Be A Memorial. This City Cannot Be A Memorial. This City Has To Be A City. Our Lives Have To Be Our Lives.

If There Wasn't A Word For It, Would We Realize Our Masochism As Much?

I Only Have Eyes For You.

This, I Think, Is How People Survive: Even When Horrible Things Have Been Done To Us, We Can Still Find Gratitude In One Another.

There Is No Word For The Recipient Of The Love. There Is Only A Word For The Giver. There Is The Assumption That Lovers Come In Pairs.

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

...but The Truth Is That I Don't Feel Like I Can Carry Anyone But Myself Right Now. The Streets Are Empty. I Am Empty. Or, No--i Am Full Of Pain. It's My Life That's Empty.

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.

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.

It Is Not Desire. Instead It Is Something Deeper. I Don't Want To Be With Him Constantly And Forever. I Want To Be With Him For The Moment, And I Want The Moments To Go On Forever.

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.

It Scares Me How Hard It Is To Remember Life Before You. I Can't Even Make The Comparisons Anymore, Because My Memories Of That Time Have All The Depth Of A Photograph. It Seems Foolish To Play Games Of Better And Worse. It's Simply A Matter Of Is And Is No Longer.

I'm Swimming In Your Cadences That You Permeate My Very Language.

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

You Know What Happens To Girls Who Loves Lost Boys? They Become Lost Themselves.

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 Still Don’t Know If This Is A Good Quality Or A Bad One, To Be Able To Be In The Moment And Then Step Out Of It.

We Could Call You An Ambisexual. A Duosexual. A—” “do I Really Have To Find A Word For It?” Kyle Interrupts. “can’t It Just Be What It Is?” “of Course,” I Say, Even Though In The Bigger World I’m Not So Sure. The World Loves Stupid Labels. I Wish We Got To Choose Our Own. We Pause For A Moment. I Wonder If That’s All—if He Just Needed To Say The Truth And Have It Heard. But Then Kyle Looks At Me With Unsure Eyes And Says, “you See, I Don’t Know Who I’m Supposed To Be.” “nobody Does,” I Assure Him.

They Never Played Games With Each Other, They Never Had Tow Worry Where They Stood, Because If Either Of Them Had A Moment Of Wavering, The Other Would Say I Love You And Would Mean It And All Doubts Were Forgiven Because In This One Case It Was Found That Love Conquers All.

I Wake Up Feverish, Sore, Uncomfortable. Is It Sickness Or Is It Heartbreak? I Can't Tell. The Thermometer Says I'm Normal, But I'm Clearly Not.

There Has To Be A Moment At The Beginning Where You Wonder Whether You’re In Love With The Person Or In Love With The Feeling Of Love Itself. If The Moment Doesn’t Pass, That’s It—you’re Done. And If The Moment Does Pass, It Never Goes That Far. It Stands In The Distance, Ready For Whenever You Want It Back. Sometimes It’s Even There When You Thought You Were Searching For Something Else, Like An Escape Route, Or Your Lovers’ Face.

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

Fate Has A Strange Way Of Making Plans.

Luckily, Tiny Texts Me Every Five Minutes Or So. I Don't Know How He Does It Without Getting Caught In Class. Maybe He Hides The Phone In The Folds Of His Stomach Or Something.

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.

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.

This Is What Love Does: It Makes You Want To Rewrite The World. It Makes You Want To Choose The Characters, Build The Scenery, Guide The Plot. The Person You Love Sits Across From You, And You Want To Do Everything In Your Power To Make It Possible, Endlessly Possible. And When It’s Just The Two Of You, Alone In A Room, You Can Pretend That This Is How It Is, This Is How It Will Be.

My Lines All Curve. I Tend To Connect The Wrong Dots.

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