Proof of my Insanity

Dear young man who might still be a boy and who makes me feel like I'm in high school again (which, I promise, is a bad thing), but who makes me laugh and lets me pull his hair,

You are my current greatest perplexity. How young you are, tall one; still floating between boyhood and manhood, on the cusp of adult. Where did you come from, with your long hair and mischievous eyes? What wave brought you to me, mad one?

You're bringing out the worst in me, tall boy. I mean, you're making me want to leave the things I have to do in the dust, and this other girl you spend time with, that makes big fat green jealousy rip through me until my stomach turns and twists itself into knots.

I hate you, tall boy, for your height and your ponytail and your wide, wide smile. For your big hands and the grin that creeps across your face after I kiss you. I hate you for making me stand on tiptoes to press my lips to yours, and for the way my legs fit so perfectly around your hips. I hate you for the lean muscles of your arms that lift me so effortlessly, and for the dark track of hair on your stomach that leads down past the waist of your jeans. I hate the way you fit so easily into what I've always wanted, and the way you are so unlike anything I've ever had.

You make my blood run hot, tall boy, rushing through my veins like rivers and flushing my face until I can't help but smile. I can't help but do a lot of things when it comes to you, and not all of them are so innocent as a smile. You make me so angry, tall boy. At you, but then not at you. And at myself.

Here's the thing: I want everything. I realize that's an incredibly broad statement, so let me both elaborate and erase all doubt of my complete and utter girlish insanity.

I want you to love me, but I don't want to love you. I want you desperate for the smell of my skin and the way I wrap my legs around you.

I want to crawl inside your skin, stretch my bones until they match yours, until our bones are twins, side by side beneath your warm muscles and smooth skin.

I want to nestle into your head, make my bed behind your eyes. I want to see what you see, hear the things you think, the secrets you keep.

I want hugs given with reckless abandon and kisses on the neck. I want late night phone calls, laughing. I want the feel of your eyes on me, even when I'm not looking.

You burn my brain with the way you are. I want to know you; I want to stop the games and move everyone else around us out of the picture so you and I can sit down and I can know all about you.

Where do you lay your head at night, tall boy? Do your feet dangle off the end of your mattress, limp with sleep? Do you sprawl across your bed, taking up every inch, leaving no room for an extra body to curl beside yours? Or do you make yourself small and stiff, unmoving and rigid beneath your blankets? I imagine you usually on your back, mouth open and slack. Maybe a thin line of drool pools at the corner of your mouth and a light snore pushes in and out from between your lips, and your arms are spread wide, chest bare, while your skinny body sinks into your mattress. Or maybe you sleep on your stomach, arms by your sides, palms up, face smashed against your pillow.

Why do I want to know how you sleep, tall boy? Because I want to lie beside you. Make spoons with me, tall boy! I want to feel the knobs of your knees fit into the backs of mine, your hips and stomach against the small of my back, your ribs against my shoulder blades. I want to tangle my cold feet with yours and feel your breath in my hair. I want to know what your skin feels like between my sheets.

I will write you into these pages. My words will tell the world about how easily you tear the neck of a guitar with your angry, thrashing metal notes. My words will tell the world about the smoothness of your lips and the peace I felt when I rested my forehead against your temple. In a story, I will capture your laugh and the eagerness with which you speak. I will capture the way you walk, or play football in shoes with no lace, or how your shirts, all too big for you, hang off your rolling shoulders.

But in doing this, tall boy, I'll expose myself to the world. Everyone will know how I am just like the ones that came before and the ones that will come after. They will all see that perhaps I like you a little too much, and that you are probably too young for me, and that you will inevitably make me crazy with your boyishness, but because that hasn't happened yet, I am pretending it never will.

I am just waiting for the words that live for you in my head to run out so that I can find a new skinny, tall boy to write about. I hope this one has tattoos and isn't so young and I hope his kisses make yours fly out of my head like they never happened, so that you and I can just be friends and I don't have to get so hot and bothered to kiss you.

I am trying to give up on you, tall boy, but I am not doing so well because all I want to do is run my fingers through your long, straight hair, pulling your head back so I can kiss your jaw and feel the warmth of your chest seep into mine.