6:00 p.m. - 2008-08-10

lately missing you has been like having a hole inside me, like you're some huge part of my life. necessary or wanted, like i'm not supposed to function without you. and this isn't fair, because this isn't love. it's alright to miss someone this badly when it's love. but you're just a kid with a girlfriend who i messed around with for a few months. typical, of me. i understand this was different for you, but not in a good way. you need certain things, and i don't fit into your life. you want to grow up, rush through this and be the adult, have a wife and stability and nine to fives. fuck. fuck, that's not you anymore. that's what you wanted seven months ago. now, i don't know. but i don't give you enough credit because you're not the same person. you are younger, freer. you told me once. kind of sad, but half laughing, you talked about yourself, obsessive compulsive composed organized reliable predictable perfectionist. the half laugh, "the q that everyone knows." and i thought to myself that i didn't know that man. i instead know the man who gives me something i don't have and don't need words for, because it is more than that. and less. it's just never what it should be, but it's amazing. worth breathing for. you are the person i most want to fight with, most want to exist with. not forever, and maybe it's already over. i'll find out in 14 days. but you were someone different than who you used to be, a man who left bruises in all the right places. the first night you said, "i don't usually talk like this." and i just laughed. now i'm thinking i really am a bad influence, sad, now that i don't have you to laugh with. it was so natural. i freak out about things like seeing you, or getting texts or phone calls or facebook messages from you. yeah, i get nausea and hyperventilate. but when i'm with you, it's so easy. we exist, we function and fit and fight and hit and avoid all the questions and even more, the answers.

i never had the words for it, for you. when i miss you, it's exciting and terrifying, to feel something truly and honestly beyond words. i haven't the words and i feel no need for them. i need you, not words. i don't have any desire to label this, but i ache and burn and wait, in my own polygamous little way, for you. but when i'm mad at you, it's just a huge flaw that we don't verbalize. we could talk endlessly about the trivial, or we could endlessly just not speak, as long as we're in the same room. is this good? is this that thing i've been waiting for? i reject so many people, refuse to take them seriously as something that should or could ever really be in my life. in all this time, neither of us have said as much as "i sort of like you" to the other. i can count the things we've said. once in the beginning, you very innocently commented on the fact that you could kiss me forever. agreed. once you told me that you'd missed me after we didn't see each other for 5 days. the night before i left, we both admit that we would miss each other those upcoming 4 months. twice now this summer, you've said you were thinking about me, but wouldn't elaborate. the day you left i text, "i miss you, sometimes."

is this my life? is this the fire i've been waiting for? the ocean and the waves, all the gravity, is this it? you give nothing away. ideally i would be in a relationship, whatever the circumstance, with someone who was so motivated by passion, that they could not help but gush now and then. but state some facts, now and then. we don't. we don't do this. i don't...i'm not sure i wish we did. i just wish i knew where i stood.

some days i am sure. just suddenly, somehow, because of the song or the light or something, it's obvious. oh well, of course. like it hasn't been weighing me down, obviously. on the days that i am sure, i am thankful.

all i meant to say was, lately missing you has been like having a hole inside me. worse than ever, now that you're home. and i wasn't planning on talking to you via anything until we got back. but then you made that move. and. and i don't know what it means. that's really all i meant to say, but, as seems habitual of me, i got carried away.

Before and After