I’m not a very good swimmer, and I’m not very good at metaphors. I wanted you to know that I am the diver, plunging deep into your ocean eyes. Some days they are the perfect blue, and others they are an astounding, breath-taking green. Like a Halloween cat’s eyes as if you were sitting on the branch outside my window. I rap rap on the window pane softly, and yet you jump off and run down the trunk. And it is night; so I do not see you run into the grass and out into the unknown beyond.
Your North Face sweatshirt has no hood, so when we walk around on the cobblestones on a windy day, I wonder if you are cold and shivering on the inside, instead of forcing the stronger man out into the open, so as to hide the shedding child’s skin you still sometimes wear. The sweatshirt is black, and it is water resistant, so when it rains, you don’t feel the wetness. So when I cry on you, you don’t get tear-stained like my eyes. When you pull the collar of your sweatshirt up to your neck, you look like John Mayer’s Battle Studies album. I love your quirkiness. I love your shyness in front of my mom and grandma. I love how that sweatshirt makes you look like my favorite artist of all time. I love your voice on the phone when I put you on speaker.
You didn’t call me two days ago after I left you at the school’s front doors to go home. You didn’t call me yesterday night, either. I worry, because I consider this our nightly ritual. You call me after seven P.M., so my minutes don’t get used up, because we talk for two hours and barely say two hundred words. You listen to music on your speakers, and complain about your biology homework. I am doing my history when I tell you to suck it up; and then you go silent for a minute. It terrifies me because I wonder if I am doing something wrong that upsets you. I hate upsetting you. I want to see you smiling all the time; I never want you to feel any pain. I want you to feel like you are home when you talk to me. I am all ears, and no judging mouth, if that is what you wish. I complain that I missed my favorite show two weeks in a row. I am most upset solely because of the fact that the lead actor is a gorgeous, gorgeous man. I wonder if you complain that I talk about other guys about you. But I always have to put up with the times when you talk about other girls. Maybe we are trying to make each other jealous: secretly. Well, it works on your part …
I’m not very good at keeping my emotions in check. I love you much I can’t explain how I really feel. I could tell you over and over again I have feelings for someone else. I can tell you that I want to be just friends; that we are only friends. But I am not a liar, nor am I a faker. I don’t want to be your sidekick anymore. I don’t want to be just me; your best friend. I don’t want to be on the sidelines.