David turned to walk away, but Griffin's desperate plea stopped him in his tracks. "Please! Just don't-"
Not turning, David asked "Why? Do you even want me here?"
"Yes, I just… I don't know how to do these things, David." Sighing, he responded.
"Tell me what you want Griff. I can't just stay and stay and stay for no reason. Not if you don't want me here! Not if you don't want me…"
"God, David. You know I can never find the words! Not my own words. I always let poetry speak for me, or just speak through my actions!"
Snapping around to face him, David exclaimed, "So let a poem speak for you! Say something damnit!"
Tentatively, Griffin began, "Don't go far off, not even for a day, because-" his voice broke, but he pushed on, "because- I don't know how to say it! A day is long and I will be waiting for you, as an empty train station where the trains are parked somewhere else, asleep. Don't leave me."
Griffin was crying now, furiously wiping away the tears that escaped, "Even for an hour, because then the little drops of anguish will all run together, the smoke that roams looking for a home, will all drift into me, choking my heart."
Voice strained and hoarse with emotion, clogged with tears, and broken. His eyes plead with David to listen, to hear what he wanted the poem the say for him.
"Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach; may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance." David was rapt, awed by the emotion Griffin always hid behind his snarky exterior.
"Don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because in that moment you'll have gone so far I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking, Will you come back? Will you leave me here dying?"
Wracked with sobs now, Griffin hid behind his hands. Afraid of David's reaction, and of his own overwhelming emotion.
"Oh, Griff." David murmured. Moving to him, David embraced him and was startled by how fiercely the smaller man was shaking.
"I love you Griffin O'Connor, and I will stay if you want me to." Looking up at the man he loved, Griffin pleaded, "Please don't leave me."
"Never, Griff." He reassured. "Never."
