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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.

-David Levithan

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Instead I Head To

David Levithan

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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.

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Neophyte, N. There Are Millions Upon Millions Of People Who Have Been Through This Before-- Why Is It That No One Can Give My Good Advice?

This Isn't Even Something I've Feared, Because I Never Knew It Was A Possibility.

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She Is Carrying Herself Through The Day, And It’s Not An Easy Task.

I Am Starting To Get Tired Of Relying On Words. They Are Full Of Meaning, Yes, But They Lack Sensation. Writing To Her Is Not The Same As Seeing Her Face As She Listens. Hearing Back From Her Is Not The Same As Hearing Her Voice. I Have Always Been Grateful For Technology, But Now It Feels As If There's A Little Hitch Of Separation Woven Into Any Digital Interaction. I Want To Be There, And This Scares Me. All My Usual Disconnected Comforts Are Bieng Taken Away, Now That I See The Greater Comfort Of Presence.

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What Separates Us From The Animals, What Separates Us From The Chaos, Is Our Ability To Mourn People We’ve Never Met.

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I Wonder If It's Possible To Start A New Relationship Without Hurting Someone Else.

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The Important Thing Is For The Characters To Feel Real, And To Be Given The Humanity They Are Due. That Granting Of Humanity Is What Separates A Full Portrait From A Stereotype.

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.

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

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Every Single Answer Starts With The Phrase 'i Don't Know.' But Most Of The Time She Does Know, If I Give Her The Time And The Space In Which To Answer.

Every Day I Am Someone Else. I Am Myself-i Know I Am Myself-but I Am Also Someone Else. It Has Always Been Like This.

Is That All We Need? Can The Way We Say Each Other's Names Encompass All Our History, All Our Love, All Our Fear, All Our Fights, All Our Reunions, All Of What We Know About Each Other, All Of What We Don't Know?

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

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.

You Have To Trust The Words. They Do Not Create Anything More Than Themselves.

I Say Good-bye To The Part Of Myself That Misses Him So Much.

I Want You To Be Honest With Me. Even If It Hurts. Although I Would Prefer For It Not To Hurt.

That's The Question, Isn't It?" You Said One Night. "does Death Bring Freedom, Or Is It The End Of Freedom?

In The Next Election, I'm Voting For Your Mom To Be The Next God.

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There Was A Time Before You But I Can't Remember It Now A Time Before Your Beauty And I Were Formally Introduced I'm Sure I Lived Without You But I Don't Remember How Can't Imagine Living Without These Feelings You've Produced Just One Glance And My Life Was Redrawn Just One Word And My Vocabulary Changed I Asked The Time And You Said 'what's The Hurry?' You Asked My Name And I Almost Forgot

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That Air. The Air Afterwards. I Wanted To Breathe It In. It Felt Right To Breathe It In. Because We Were Breathing Them In, Weren't We? And The Building. We Were Breathing It All In. And I Thought, There's A Part Of This That's Actually A Part Of Me Now. I Now Have That Responsibility. I Am Alive, And I Am Breathing, And I Can Do The Things This Dust Can't Do.

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If I Lose It Now, I Will Lose You, Too. I Know That. I Hate It.

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Having Someone Think Of Me That Way Was Like Discovering A New Window In The Room I'd Lived In All My Life.

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Sometimes The Space Between Knowing What To Do And Actually Doing It Is A Very Short Walk. Other Times It Is An Impossible Expanse.

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

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Long Live Protest Songs, In Whatever Form They Take.

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

But You Have To Figure That If It’s Too Hard To Hang On, Then Maybe You Should Let Go.

I Have Already Spent Roughly Five Thousand Hours Asleep Next To You. This Has To Mean Something.

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.

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 Used To Think That When I Got Older, The World Would Make So Much More Sense. But You Know What? The Older I Get, The More Confusing It Is To Me. The More Complicated It Is. Harder. You’d Think We’d Be Getting Better At It. But There’s Just More And More Chaos. The Pieces—they’re Everywhere. And Nobody Knows What To Do About It. I Find Myself Grasping, Nick. You Know That Feeling? That Feeling When You Just Want The Right Thing To Fall Into The Right Place, Not Only Because It’s Right, But Because It Will Mean That Such A Thing Is Still Possible? I Want To Believe In That.

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They Don’t Have Silences Together; They Have Noise. Mostly His.

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And I'm Moved, It's So Beautiful. Not What I Wrote, But To Have It Given Back Like This. To Have Her Remember The Words And The Tune. To Hear It In Her Voice.

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

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

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Maybe That's What History Is, You Go From One I Can't Believe It The Next. And Sometimes The I Can't Believe Its Are Good, And Sometimes They're Bad. But The Sum Total Of Positive Ones Always Outweighs The Negative Ones.

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

I Was Starting To Think I Was Making Up Memories, Just To Have Answers. Our Brain Does That Sometimes. Or At Least Mine Does.

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Love Weaves Itself From Hundreds Of Threads.

I Want To Know Why This Is Such A Part Of Me. I Want To Know Why This Thing That Happened To Other People Has Happened So Much To Me. I Keep Looking For The Lesson.

I've Worn Black Today, Because I've Heard So Often That It's Supposed To Be Slimming. But Instead I Am This Sphere Of Darkness Submarining Through The Halls.

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

I'm Always Standing On The Edge Of Something Bad.

Standing On The Edge

If Smart People Are Parodying It, That's A Sure Sign That Some Less Smart People Are Believing It.

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The Boy I Just Kissed Is Talking To My Father. The Boy I Want To Kiss Again Is Waiting For My Mother To Serve Pancakes. I Must Fight The Urge To Freak.

This Might Be The Happy Ending Without The Ending

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.

There Is Always Something New To Learn About The Person You Love.

Be Careful What You're Doing, Because No One Is Ever Who You Want Them To Be.

How Do You Commemorate A Year? A Paper Anniversary, But We Are The Words Written Down, Not The Paper.

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

I Never Have People Tell Me Their Stories. I Usually Have To Figure Them Out Myself. Because I Know That If People Tell Me Stories, They Will Expect Them To Be Remembered. And I Cannot Guarantee That. There Is No Way To Know If The Stories Stay After I'm Gone. And How Devastating Would It Be To Confide In Someone And Have The Confidence Disappear? I Don't Want To Be Responsible For That.

Guarantees That

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There Is No Reason That We Should Ever Be Ashamed Of Our Bodies Or Ashamed Of Our Love.

Two Infinities: The One That Stretches To The Beginning But Never Touches-when You Halve And Halve And Halve, Infinitely-and Then The One That Spreads Out Into The Endless, Endless Future, The Endless, Endless, Distance.the Set Of Infinities That Is Itself Infinite.

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Teens Wanted Things That Were Real, That They Connected With, It Doesn't Have To Reflect Reality Directly. They Love 'the Hunger Games' Not Because It's Real In That It Happens, But The Emotions There Are Real, And It's Very Relatable.

When You Live As I Do, You Cannot Indulge In Jealousy. If You Do, It Will Rip You Apart.

The Thing About Champagne,you Say, Unfoiling The Cork, Unwinding The Wire Restraint, Is That Is The Ultimate Associative Object. Every Time You Open A Bottle Of Champagne, It's A Celebration, So There's No Better Way Of Starting A Celebration Than Opening A Bottle Of Champagne. Every Time You Sip It, You're Sipping From All Those Other Celebrations. The Joy Accumulates Over Time.

It Was A Mistake," You Said. But The Cruel Thing Was, It Felt Like The Mistake Was Mine, For Trusting You.

He Was Attractive. I Knew That. And I Knew That Attractive People Always Got Away With Things.

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

It's The Belief, Not The Words, That Mean Everything. It's The Floating.

I Am Constantly Torn Between Killing Myself And Killing Everyone Around Me.

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.

If I'm Not Telling You Something, It's For A Reason. Just Because You Trust Me, It Doesn't Mean I Have To Automatically Trust You. Trust Doesn't Work Like That.

I Think They Have Compatible Silences.

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.

I Have Learned How 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.

We Always Loved To Say 'if I'd Had A Monday-morning Class, I Never Would Have Met You'. Or 'if You'd Been Reading Something Else, None Of This Would Have Happened'. We Didn't Believe In Fate, But We Believed In Serendipity. We Felt Very Lucky.

Her Mind Is An Unquiet One, Words And Thoughts And Impulses Constantly Crashing Into Each Other.

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.

He’ll Have To Prove It To You. Every Day, He’ll Have To Prove He’s Worthy Of You. And If He Doesn’t, That’s It. But I Think He Will.

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.

My Mother Said I Should Have A 'change Of Scenery.' The Word Scenery Made Be Think Of A Play. And As We Were Driving Around, It Made Sense That Way. Because No Matter How Much The Scenery Changed, We Were Still On The Same Stage.

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

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.

But I Think We Were Walking Around Like We Were Invincible. And Maybe That's A Bad Way To Live Your Life. Because You're Not Invincible. Nobody Is. And Maybe Now That We've Learned That, We'll Be Better.

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

Bad Girl!" She Chided. "i'm Pretty Sure Boris Is A Boy," I Said. "oh, I Know," Mrs. Basil E. Assured Me. "i Just Like To Keep Him Confused," Then She And Boris Headed Off With My Future.

I Love You,” She Says. “i Love You,” I Say. And Then We Hang Up, Because Nothing Else Needs To Be Said After That. I Want To Give Zara Her Life Back. Even If I Feel I Deserve Something Like This, I Don’t Deserve It At Her Expense.

Do Not Just Seek Happiness For Yourself. Seek Happiness For All. Through Kindness. Through Mercy.

They Defy Gravity, As Good Books Should.

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

You Wanna-i Dunno-get Coffee Or Something Sometime?

But I Still Has Enough Longing For That Concept That I Didn't Want To Dispel It Completely. Meaning: I Didn't Want To Tell Lily That I Felt We'd All Been Duped By Plato And The Idea Of A Soul Mate. Just In Case It Turned Out That She Was Mine.

Eventually She Fell Asleep, But I Kept The Phone Against My Ear, Lulled By Her Breathing, And Her Breathing Again In The Background. And Yes, It Felt Like Home. Like Everything Belonged Exactly Where It Was.

I Am So Used To Hints And Mixed Messages, Saying Things That Might Mean What They Sort Of Sound Like They Mean. Games And Contests, Roles And Rituals, Talking In Twelve Languages At Once So The True Words Won't Be So Obvious. I Am Not Used To A Plainspoken, Honest Truth.

It Was A Laugh That Came From The Tip Of His Toes, Gaining Force And Soul As It Traveled Through His Body And Out Into The World In Mirthful Bursts. There Wasn't Anything Fake About It; It Was An Amusement Park Of A Laugh, And When It Appeared, You Wanted To Jump On Board.

We Walk Into A Bar, And You're Aware Of All The Eyes On You. We Walk Into A Bar, And I'm Aware Of All The Eyes On You, Too. For You, This Translate Into Confidence. But Me? All I Can Feel Is Doubt.

We Found Out A Long Time Ago That We Weren’t Meant To Fall In Love With Each Other. But A Part Of Me Still Fell In Hope With Him.

Falling In Love

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 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.

It Is So Unfair That He Lives In Ohio, Because That Should Be Close Enough, But Since Neither Of Us Drives And Neither Of Us Would Ever In A Million Years Say, 'hey, Mom, Do You Want To Drive Me Across Indiana To See A Boy?,' We're Kind Of Stuck.

That Strange, Twisted, Torn Love. That Conflict Between What Your Heart Knows Is Right And What Your Mind Is Told Is Right.

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Craig Claiborne

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