more words about a boy!!!
the mortifying ordeal of being queer, etc.
This week I kicked myself for thinking about you more than work, more than future plans, more than my own wellbeing.
This weekend my brain was only you.
My heart, my stomach, my hands and my throat, all full of your sweet laugh, your quirky earrings, your blue eyes, the trail of hair that leads down from your navel into your swim trunks. I’d never seen that hair before- you’ll never have any idea how hard it was not to stare at it.
You have moles on your back I didn’t know about. Your skinny shoulders and your pretty throat are so tan but your chest and back are so pale. I sat behind you on the paddleboard and stared at your bony spine, forced myself not to lean forward and kiss it.
You lay next to me last night and I gripped your shoulder for dear life. I fingered the collar of your blue linen shirt and you shivered and I touched the scruff on your cheek for a second time, this time on purpose. You didn’t kiss me. Your breath was hot on my face, just inches from my open mouth. I didn’t kiss you. We didn’t speak of it in the morning.
There was nothing to speak of.
But I keep thinking of that scene in Perks of Being a Wallflower: Patrick’s boyfriend had to get drunk to love him. I’m sorry if I’m leading you on. You’re sorry if you’re leading me on. I tell my mother I’m not worried about it: we’re just having fun.
I want to run my hands through your new haircut. I want to taste your crooked teeth. Your mother likes me- I wish I didn’t know that she used to hit you when you talked back.
She said you didn’t used to be so sweet. I’m glad I didn’t know you or her then. Then this wouldn’t feel so sweet, so fleeting, so desperate. We’re not going to be together forever, I’ll probably never see you again after July.
The chapter where we don’t kiss but we grip each other desperately, not sexually, under the covers when we’ve been drinking. We don’t touch in the daylight. We don’t speak of it.
There’s nothing to speak of.
