He stands there. Lanky legs, tussled hair. I don't understand the person that he is, though I would like to.

It's like the stars above sent him here. An angel blessed among selfish men.

I've seen him before. In my dreams, he comes and he takes my hand and we go on adventures I'd never get the chance to write about otherwise.

He shows me the mountains and how to fly if I dare slip. With him I've seen constellations and undiscovered wonders of this mundane world. His feet leave flowers behind for me to follow as we trail through the canyons overlooking moon-reflecting waters of old.

His hands are cold sometimes, but not dead; it's a cold of shock and excitement. Sometimes they are warm, and I could hold them forever, like all the love in the world was held there in my grasp.

He's got big blue eyes filled with galaxies we don't know yet.

His lips are red tinted, sometimes closer to pink, like roses growing up the old fence-gate. His cheeks flush with a lasting joy, though sometimes he is sad.

People have hurt him. Troubles have encased him and bound him for little eternities of nightmare, leaving him broken and scared.

He sings songs for me sometimes, on the tops of little hills under darkened skies.

"Don't keep love around," he sang one night when I saw tear-stained cheeks, "So what do I do now, I don't keep love around anymore." and heartbreak flooded over us, but I love him even still, whether he is aware or not.

Some days I'm worse off, some days we're both trying to stitch limbs back onto bleeding bodies; some days everything, everywhere, is utopia.

Some nights he will come late, and when I ask him why he says he's planned something; and he always has.

Hours after midnight spark up with neon lights, pacing empty streets in a ghost town nobody knows. We walk in time, hand in hand, singing each other our hearts stuck in our throats. If I think about it hard enough, it all seems too perfect.

"Don't you want to see your man up close, a phoenix in the fire; so kiss me on the mouth and set me free, just please don't bite..." fear danced like native spirits in his bright eyes. I told him I won't, but I don't know that he heard.

"I don't want to let this go, I don't want to lose control, I just want to see the star s with you. I don't want to say goodbye, someone tell me why I just want to see the stars with you." the night we took a boat through the milky way and all I ever thought I wanted.

Sometimes he winks at me, or we dance like idiots together. In a pit of pleasure and uncertainty (and heartbreak I see coming), I can say I've kissed my boy from the beyond. Under the silver moon. In the tops of forests in foreign lands. On a boat sailing through dreams and dark waters. The dark waters got to him, though, shut him right up. We don't talk anymore, not really; sometimes I'll tell him all about the events of my monotone days, but he never replies directly.

"Anything hurts less than the Quiet." don't leave me in these silent dark waters, I asked him, to which of course he said nothing at all.

I told him only fools fall for him, and slipped my earbuds in, letting his distant voice take me away like he used to. "Don't you want to see the world, boy; all the countries and their stars, boy; let's go have fun..." still I can't fight this feeling like the words were once meant for me.

I see him in my dreams, distant and never like it used to be. My imagination forms a version of him that takes me away from my hells and my nightmares. He talks to me, sings for me, holds my hand for stupid reasons; it's like we used to be, but not real.

I see him on the little screen held so tightly in my hands, my earbuds playing his words through to my desperate ears.

"Leave this blue neighborhood, I never knew loving could hurt this good, and it's driving me wild; you're driving me wild, wild, wild."

He's still my happy little pill, the house I once saw up on a hill, everything in my best dreams; he puts my mind in wreck, yet at ease. I'm still the fool that fell for him, I still want to see the stars with him again, I miss his touch, and the way he was the gasoline to the fire in my heart, and the fun we had on all those adventures. I hate that after all this time, he drives me wild; how he's still my boy from the stars with the tide-pool eyes and perfect lips and ruffled hair. I'm sure I'd give nearly anything to be with him again.

But I don't keep love around...anymore.  

XWhere stories live. Discover now