REFLECTIONS AND MIRRORS

           (( I wrote love on his arms ))

 

           With black paint tipping the brush, I carefully wrote along his s o f t skin of his inner forearm. And I ((((wanted)))) to run my lip-p-p-pss against them. I wanted to run my lips along the contours of colors of the warm canvas of [you] him. I wanted to be [close]r.

B-B-B-b u t I COULDN’T. I had to be)(have . . .{nothing} . . .

                                                                        { you can't just f-f-f-fuckingggg take things }

           But

               I want

                         W A N T !!! ;; !

     want-t-t-t-to kiss HIM. AND→(I leaned)→in and for a moment, having our lips touch—even for a moment—didn’t seem impossible. And he looked me in the eye with his clear (beautiful beautiful b e a u t i f u l!!! )sky gaze and for a second(!!), he seemed to understand. The world seemed to (tip[!]) and he was pitching towards me, the distance quickly [closing] between us— - 

           But then his lips pulled taut at the corners and his mouth bro ke out into another sun l i t laugh. His white teeth gleamed in the shine of his amusement—a shine that blinded me.

           “Thanks Ali,”

                         he laughed before he—

                                                                d i s a p p e a r e d, running o—f—f.

           ``—(&&!!) I didn’t realize until long after he had left that my hands—he had left my paint stained hands ( t r e m b l i n g ) with the fear of asymp|totic immediacy. A fleet feeling that [filled] me and fled in the same instant that I wondered if it was there at all. But it was [ t h e r e ]—only he’d never understand. He’d never love me like I wanted him to; I was a boy in l o v e and he was a man { unknown . }