Smithereens - Samuel
Your limbs curl around mine and I think that we should have noticed this sooner, and can't help but regret that we didn't. It's there, nagging at me, even as I am here with you, like this, like how I imagined, but not how I'd imagined at all, and I know that I shouldn't be wasting myself on things not done and should be thinking of what we had just done (several times) but the truth is, I don't really want to think about either. It's sort of an nice, unfamiliar feeling to be suspended in this oblivion. I don't want to move, but knowing that you're awake makes me remember that there are still things to do, important things so that I can stay here. Oblivion comes crashing down and I wish I'd been sleeping for it.
Crow - Erik
The word crow means nothing to me, except for those damn black pigeons that keep me awake in the morning outside your window. For a while I thought maybe I was still in a nightmare, but that couldn't be quite right, because you were still here with me. And yet, it could still be a dream, because you're there often enough, and I don't think that I actually hear the crows at all, but I know that I see them, and I know that I was flipping through and encyclopaedia about death omens (why would I do such a thing), and know that crows were mentioned. But crows eat carrion and you aren't dead, so all the bad things people think about crows can't have happened and that means that I'm awake. Still, I can't feel sure.
Promiscuous - Samuel
I know all the dirty novels because Odette gives them to me, and I used to wonder where Odette got them, and so I asked and she showed me where. I know that most people, including yourself, don't regard it entirely as true writing, but the truth is, I find that there are infinite variations in them, and when it's really good, I tend to think of you. Like, so good that I should probably go take a shower and save myself the bed sheets and the covert operations that would follow in cleaning them. And I know that you don't read them, but I do know that you definitely benefit from some of the ideas I get from them. So hah.
Alleviate - Erik
It started as a knot just behind the back of my neck, probably from hunching over my laptop for so long waiting for you to answer, but I guess you'd fallen asleep (because you do that) and slowly, vertebrae by vertebrae I go catatonic and wonder why I'm waiting on your word like tenterhooks, because you probably aren't going to say anything that terribly clever at this time of night anyways. But you haven't been feeling well (you never do, but we never talk about that) and I want to make sure that you're okay. Even at this time of night. Oh, sorry, mom was asking me about the doctor. She won't leave me alone. I sigh and it relieves the tension that built up in my spine, but something else replaces it and compresses my responses into further paralysis because sometimes I wish that you wouldn't tell me things like that.
Factor - Samuel
I suck at math and you're horrendous because you rock at physics. Nonetheless, like a regular human being (like a person not like Charles) I shelved my pride and asked you for help. To be fair, you did help for a while, but I think we forgot about the part of me be lazy and also of me being a complete lecher, despite appearances. Once we realized that, our clothes suddenly disappeared and I wondered briefly why we ever bothered to wear them at all but then remembered that it was not such an appealing thing to be caught in the nude by say, my parents, or by our friends. The parents would be horrified (especially if we are nude together) and our friends, would recoil, but then erupt into convulsions of laughter, those bastards.
The parents were somewhat horrified, but let's admit it, they weren't that surprised.
Tenacious - Erik
If you were not such a stubborn pig, mule, or any other variety of farm animal, I don't think that I could bear to look at you. See, I have an animal fetish, and it's about time that I told you. Okay, I don't, and I think that I just threw up a little in my mouth and now my brain is reminding me of your reading material and I really don't want to think of the vast libraries of deviancies you have perused and I don't think that you should be grinning like that, you ass. But really, if you were not such a victim to the ways of stubbornness (see, I said it without an animal metaphor), I don't think that you'd still be here, and that's not something that I like to think of, so thank-you for being such a lazy, stubborn ass.
Analog - Samuel
You wear an analog watch and every time I ask you what time it is, you wordlessly shove it in my face and expect me to read it, forgetting either that I'd been staring off into space and that my eyes would have to refocus, or that I'd been reading a book, and again there is some refocusing that would have to take place here. Also, you forget that I like to sleep, and that my eyes were probably closed even if I wasn't sleeping. I like cat naps. Meow. The point being, that it would much nicer of you to just tell me what time it is, rather than shoving that spindly contraption in my face and expecting me to be able to pick out the numberless dashes that signify, allegedly, a measurement of time.
Superfluous - Erik
My concern tends to spill out everywhere, and when you see it happening, you give me a glare that could kill off an entire army. I'm only one man! I know that you hate sympathy, and because I know that, I do my best to limit just where it's applied. So please, in return, try not to look at me like that, because every time that you do, something goes SCRAPE, DRAG, CRUNCH and CRASH and it hurts. All those words are examples of HURTING words, and they are difficult to smile at you through. But notice that I do.
Partition - Samuel
I hope that you don't mind, but I took all of your analogously coloured clothes and separated them into piles while you were sleeping. I'm not really sure what the compulsion was behind that, but I did it. It didn't take a lot of effort, on account of your room already being divided up into a, don't take this wrong, freakishly OCD/former mental hospital patient sort of way. It makes me wonder what is going on in your mind that makes you want to simplify everything into colours and particular places for particular things and frankly m'dear, it almost feels like cause for concern. Why do you think that it is that May and Charles quote the Hannibal movies so much around you?
Exodus - Erik
When everyone leaves, I can stop feeling like a smudge on the wall. They wouldn't stop talking to you, and it's obvious that you aren't to interested in what they were saying at the moment, and I wanted to shout at them to leave. I smiled and answered politely when they asked who I was, and your mother shifted over a glance to me when I said I was a friend from school. I think that my smile must have faltered a little, or something else on my face twitched or something. Thankfully, no one noticed, and if they did, they probably just thought that it was a tic. But once they left, everything went quiet again, your mother kissed you on the forehead (I've always admired how you gracefully tolerate that) and told you that your dad would call later. Then it's just us, and a pile of birthday gifts by the glazed window looking into the parking lot. I didn't get you anything but I will feed you cake.
Phantasmagoria - Samuel
Sometimes, when I'm not sleeping, I'm pretty sure that there are ghosts from my dreams that come out. I see them from the corner of my eyes, shadowing around along the walls and sliding across the floors. I go to look at them, but they aren't there. Not when they know, that I know, that they're there. Funny thing about ghosts, they can be invisible. Actually, several times I'd thought that maybe they weren't ghosts or dream people at all, and just assumed that it was you, lurking around trying to watch over me or investigate into what I'm doing. Sometimes you're spooky, you know that? I think it's the smile you use when you don't know what to say.
Ransacking - Erik
I wish that you didn't know how to do that without speaking. It doesn't seem entirely fair, knowing how to decipher my every action and non-verbal cue and know instinctively what it means. I feel violated by that, and then, as if that wasn't enough, you actually put me off guard and then take advantage of having done so. It's not enough to just watch me struggle to try and figure what I feel about something, really, but you have to just let me stand there, shell-shocked grinned and swoop down to make sure that I know who's in charge. I try to do the same to you, but you take in stride and my efforts betray me. It's not that I don't entirely not enjoy it, which is the part that bothers me the most, it's just that I have to wonder if I'll ever be at least an equal and you'll stop having to be on top of things. No pun intended.. You've been taking lessons from Charles, I think,
Steam - Samuel
You don't know this, but in the winter you are particularly…the word is adorable, and I don't like to use it, but I'm finding that there is a lack of better terminology. See, what happens is, you come over to my place after being in the cold and then blunder around in indecision as to whether or not you should take off your glasses so that you can see (or not see, but not see only the white of the fog) or if you should just wait it out. It makes you very clumsy, and knocks you down several notches in eloquence of speech. In fact, you get tongue tied by the distraction. And then, once it's all cleared up, you get screwed over again when you pour the water to make us a pot of tea. The point being, it's endearing. And fun to watch. Entertainment is a must in any form of endearment. Please be more careful when you pour hot water though, I don't want you to freak out and end up burning yourself. That would be less entertaining.
Grotto - Erik
Do you remember that place out in the park by that beach we went to for the school picnic, the one that the hippies made from fallen tree limbs and leafy branches? That's what you asked me and I was tempted to kick you, wondering how you could have asked such a question considering what'd happened there between you and me that time. Of course I remember. Nonetheless, I nodded and said yes (redundancy, much?) and you snatched my by the hand and dragged me out to the trail behind your house. I was surprised by your energy, though I was glad to see it. You kissed me again, but this time in earnest (and with a certain lack of innocence and a certain excess of tongue), and not in the fear of losing time. I was glad, because I'd been wondering for a long time what you'd meant by everything after that time.
Hallelujah - Samuel
You played that song a lot for a while, but it never got on my nerves. Actually, what happened was that you made me feel guilty, and I know that you didn't mean to, but I started to want to make things better, easier for you, but I didn't know how. I admit that I have a certain ungratefulness about me when it comes to you, but that's not actually what it is. I'm sorry that it makes you uncomfortable and makes you think that you have to smile like that. Don't. Anyways, I know that it's not your birthday, but I bought you the album because I know that you like to buy them rather than download them (support the artists and all), and I'm not really sure why you hadn't bought this one yet, but it's beside your CD player in your room.
Irish - Erik
I do not really think that green is your colour. Or rather, I do not think that it is your colour when you finger paint four-leaf clovers on my back on St. Patrick's day because I forgot to wear green and had been receiving prods, jock shoulder punches, pinches and flicks of the finger all day (there was no consistency). I appreciate that you show concern, except that maybe you could have done it at the very least, at the beginning of the day. I know that you had that jar of paint since this morning from the art class. It hasn't washed out, by the way. And that was my favourite blue shirt.
Paroxysmal - Samuel
Seeing your face after the first time I'd come home from the hospital was torture. Your outpourings of repressed emotions from that day is still lingering, and I don't want you too look at me like that when you think that I can't feel you looking at me like that. I'm not cured or anything, yet (or if ever), but I am doing considerably better and it's manageable. So please, don't punctuate every time I'm falling asleep with a lingering look like /that/ one because it only reminds of when I first came home. I don't think I need to say it, but just to enforce that you remember, that is not a good memory of you and I don't like to be reminded of it. And definitely not from you.
Remit - Erik
When we do this, it makes things go away. I know why you read those books; it's escape, like with any book. And it's hormones, but more importantly, it means that for a while, you get to get out of your body and go into the places in your mind that are only concerned with satisfying you. Me, an enabler when it comes to you, of course will comply with every part of you that I know to get you to that place, because I don't want you to have to think of it. So I'll kiss you in all your favourite spots (that place on your arm, that one by your hip) and I'll make sure that I'm careful, but not so careful for you to think that I'm afraid of breaking you. I don't want you to think I'm useless, and I don't want you to think that I'm sympathetic, even when I am. I just want to keep your mind away from all the crap things your body did to you and I want to take care of you. I hope that you don't mind that.
Eloquence - Samuel
I don't know when you became so good with words, because I remember in sixth grade when you couldn't even read a passage out of a textbook without mucking something up. But you did something, or something changed. When I asked you about it, you didn't answer and just smiled back and said something about having a lot of spare time when you came to visit me. I guess that you practiced when I was sleeping, and maybe this is why every time I go to read a book, the voice that reads it sounds like you and your carefully fluent tenor.
Collections - Erik
It's important to me that you don't know that you're getting under my skin, no matter what the situation. And I don't mean under my skin in the way that I mean that I'm angry, because I'm rarely angry with you; just frustrated. But that's not it either. There are too many things that I feel about you and it's difficult to put one thing here, another there, and make a list; calm is the alternative, and then I can sort through everything else later. If I didn't do that, trust me, I'd only make a mess of things and say, do, suggest something stupid. I'm better at feeling when I'm alone. Don't worry, it always works out in the end. I just have to stay calm, and wait till later. It's not as easy as I make it look, but I'm well practiced. And I do love you. You just confuse me, that's all.