He got a new computer on August 18, 2023,
In the blue light, in his room, the first thing he did
He messaged a boy, said he wanted to see him,
He loved a boy, and he wanted to see him.

The word hate appeared
197 times in their messages since
Aug 18, 2023 at 5:18 AM
125 of those were the word “whatever”

“i’m down for whatevs i jus wanna see uouuu”,
“ I will Fr see you tomorrow by whatever means necessary”,
“Whatever you’re comfortable with tho Fr”,
“They can think whatever they want I love you”,

“Whatever your heart desires Fr, this is your last semester of
highschool ever so you really just want to be happy with it”,
“I will do whatever I can to support you”,
“whatever works for you my love”,

Hates, hate, and hated: 66 results
I hate you: 0 results
I thought it beautiful, that when searching for
Hate, so much love was found instead.

Of the 465 days from when he bought his
Computer, we only get to peer, at one facet
Of their lives, one snippet of time.  A historians tragedy
To have something like this, and know it

Shows so much, but not enough. Of the 465 days
These boys sent 412 Goodnight messages,
and 290 good morning ones. Two people in love
Think about each other all the time, but few

Take the time to say it-
Thinking about you: 207 results
I miss you: 335 Results
Why is love often felt strongest in absence,

Why are words always longer in the past tense?
Out of 465 days, on one form of communication
Results for “I love you” were well over 1000.
Searching for “love” made the computer he bought crash.

☐ Learn to play an instrument
☑ See the pyramids
☐ See the northern lights
☑ Have my first kiss
☑ Graduate High School
☐ Ride in a hot air balloon
☑ Fall in love
☑ Nap together
☑ Cook dinner together
☑ Try shrooms
☐ Make him breakfast in bed
☑ Build a snowman
☐ Couples dancing lessons
☑ Go camping together
☐ Make love in a blanket fort
☐ Go backpacking together
☑ Celebrate an Anniversary
☐ Kiss in the rain
☑ Watch a meteor shower together
☐ Take a spontaneous road trip together
☒ Make it work
☐ Have a new year’s kiss
☐ Earn his forgiveness
☐ Start a garden
☐ Raise a dog
☐ Raise a cat
☐ Share a house
☐ Make a home
☐ Plant a tree
☐ Get married
☐ Build a bookshelf by hand
☐ Slow dance in the kitchen
☐ Write a book
☐ Be a family
☑ Choose him again
☑ and again
☐ Be chosen back

Whenever I would bite a carrot two things used to cross my mind
My dad, and how its just as easy to bite off your own finger
Now I think of you, how you hate them, how I should have bit my tongue

Our bed was colder than before,
Our window was open but
We locked the door.
We are locked together
Shut
The whether
Or not we stay inside,
You and me
I guess we’ll see.
Maybe if we tried
To go
And close our ******* window

White sands pile to form an island
Before dissolving in a deep cinnamon sea–
Dark and infused

The village, where I bought my first box
The gold, from the streetside, accenting
The steam, like incense on the bedside
And the mug, that you got me, for my birthday

Tea will always remind me of you,
I make a *** each day

One of my earliest memories, is in the morning
I didn't take the time to get dressed,
I went to my door and squeezed, both hands,

Proud that I had solved the child-lock
Too early for a kid my age
To be awake, alone, and heading outside

But who sleeps well through shouting?
It wasn't too cold for me
Even In just my superman underwear

So it must've been summer.
I went down the steps
From our high front porch

And went straight towards
A dandelion, not blooming
But full with seeds

And I wished
for love, love
between my parents,

And cried.
My first
Memory crying

Was
For
Love.

You and nature get along well,
Blue skies, brown eyes, green thumb.
Have you seen the spirits lately,
Does the river ever ask about me?

Look outside this spring,
See sunlight shine away the winter,
After endless rain,
Dark soil calling new growth.

And if it feels like nature to you as well, lets
Reduce our distance, plant roots again,
Reuse our same old jokes, repeat our favorite dates,
Recycle all this love we have, it can be new and feel the same.

I can’t write about it.
I can barely think
about that day on the bridge.

But thank you—
for letting me hug your dog.

You didn’t owe me kindness,
but you were still kind.

Dear T,

If I can be honest,
Im lost without you,
Or maybe I'm just lost.
I was someone else
When we first started dating
And you were someone else too.
I loved changing alongside you.

If I can be honest,
It scared me at the end.
I didn't feel like myself
And I wasn't sure who I was,
Now I'm different, yet the same.
In college, its normal, to become something new
I loved creating something new with you

And if I can be honest,
I miss you with all my heart
It makes my chest swell with regret,
And my mind swirl in disappointment.
I want to be proud of who I am,
Of the things I do.
I loved being proud of you.

I don't know if I can be honest.
I lie to myself.
I try to be good and I try to be me,
But those **** philosophers
Make me believe,
I don't know what good is and I don't know who I am,
But honestly, if we're talking of honesty
Then truly I know only one truth.
Honestly, truthfully, T,

I love you.

Always,
C

You showed me paths
In my house, I didn't know existed
And now there's no space

That feels complete without you-
r touch. Every house will feel
Off kilter, every bedroom will feel

Too cramped, too empty.
Every garden path too jagged
And every living room too dead

Peace is to harmonize with your environment
And there's no harmony like you
Wind sings through spaces you create

And comfort flows like water.
So please put your artists gaze upon me
And make paths for us in this room.

Paths that lead from me to you.

I tend to keep my head down, eyes low
on the days you're not around.
Because why
would I look up, turning my head
to search for paradise in empty sky
When I know, Heaven is you.
Astronomers and cloud gazers, can't see the beauty I’ve found,
The worlds I know,
or stars we’ve born, talking in our bed.
Making constellations new,
we etch love against the universe, together.

Love and passion are often confused–
I began with something real.
Love and passion don’t walk side by side, love
tears down walls with a hurricane of butterfly wings

and passion walks easily through the rubble.
I don’t believe in the thrill of the chase, the
opposites attract, or the love that's formed
between two people lost together at sea. Fake.

I’ve experienced 100 exciting-stressful things
but I’ve only experienced 1 you. And they have not
felt the same. The night we met in front of canes
I had lied to my father, and my mother, to see you.

I hated the thrill of the lie, driving with you high,
off devices I couldn't name, I hated that.
But we kept going and chatting, I ignored a stop sign
Sure that I would get pulled over, knuckles red-white,

But you spoke sweetly, said it was ok, I think we knew
that I was colorblind to red when it came to you, and you
smiled when I called with my friends, and you looked so pretty
in the streetlights, and we talked like it was easy. I loved that.

One fish asks another, How’s the water today? The second replies,
What is love? It’s okay if it doesn’t make sense to you—
it makes sense to me, like the way I needed you
before I even knew your name. and honestly

It feels like I met you twice, on the luckiest day of the year, and
the luckiest day of my life, and again in a Kalhert parking lot.
Disappointedly sober, so we crawled into each other unprotected,
And shared songs like pieces of ourselves.  I met you there.

To have learned love from you, I am eternally grateful
that I will never have to feel love turn to hate, or feel
the sting of betrayal, because we weren’t perfect together
but you were perfect with me, and you handled my heart gently

I Think how wonderful it is that I have loved you, because you have
given me love in the buildings and in the trees, and countless things
that bring me back to the thought of you, and I will love to take my walks
and hear your smile, in the way the wind blows through the reeds, of our preservation

You’ve rattled my world and broken me open
Adoration and obsession flowing red hot like magma
The end of the world for my sensibilities

Dreams of us shift tectonically in my mind
making tremors in my soul
And shaking me down on the page.

And in the vast sea of my thoughts
You make tidal waves
And raise islands, unmovable

I don't know who Richter is
But on any scale I know
You’re a 10

I think he's there but
I can't be sure.
Can anyone be sure

Of themselves,
Or can they
Just lie convincingly

Next to one another,
Two boys lay on their chests
Fingers blooming out towards

The Others. No contact
Their heads averted
They lie, as mirrored angels

Unshifting, so they don't spill blood
From their backs
On the snow

It's easier to be near someone
If you don't have to look.
You don't have to feel

Blue snow on your wound
Or red hands in yours
Or the relief that feels red-black

Like the color of your eyelids.
closing my eyes
And looking makes me feel

The closest I can to seeing inside
My mind, and it's all bouncing dots
And swirling pink-blue-red-black-white.

I want to be a flower
Because they don't have eyes
To close. I want to be a flower

Because they need only be open
To the sky, and the sky loves them.
The sky rains when they are closed and

When they are blooming, the sky
Shines light through their petals
And says,

I love the way you glow.

I will  · ·
Try constantly to make · – · ·
Harmonies, tapestries, poetry – – –
That praise your radiance · · · –
with ·
messages so carefully invisible – · – –
Concealing beautiful testaments – – –
To you— Encoded · · –

I didn't know how to stay
without drowning.

I didn't know how to leave
without breaking.

I still see you,
in trees,
in songs,
in the words I almost say.

You were the life I nearly had.

This year began in march-
       The best part
                Of any ride is always
                             Near the end
                So that when it is over
         You wish deeply
                To start again-
                      I wanted to go
                           Towards a riotous
                Celebration, but I forgot
          To invite my mom,
Or common sense.
                  I was far too busy being
                          “Happy”
                         ­  I was indulging in
                 Bite-sized love
          And becoming intoxicated
                             With admiration.
                     Colby left town in march
       To fall in love with bad habits
                     Hopefully he’ll be home by Christmas,
           Or at least New Years

Cirrus

You are not just a cat,
but a cloud come to rest
in a shape, soft and breathing.
Wind-white fur and sky-colored eyes—
A silver lining
with paws.

T knows you disappear sometimes.
Slipping into the folds of the house
Or sneaking through the grass,

The temperature changes when clouds disappear
And the rooms remember what they’re missing.
You vanish just long enough
to teach the joy of your return.

And maybe you do it on purpose—
not to worry him,
but because you know,
That something loved, thats lost, then found—
Is held more dearly and close
Than something never lost at all

But Cirrus,
you should know
you have been the storm at the center of a heart
that never stops checking the weather.
And there's no magic or disappearing act
That could make you more adored

So hide and reappear,
ghost and glide,
cloud and curl beside him at night.
For even when you're out of sight,
you are never out of love.

I’m visiting places you’ve never been— Still I find you there.
It is beautifully sad to see you in everything. I want
Tears of joy, not regret, when I see orchids on my wedding day

Naming our first cat
Raising our first kid
Our garden, our flowers
I love the sound of Ours.
Did
you know it? The night we
met, that
you might
see me
like this? I didn’t that night.

I’ve always said that I lack self-control
Can’t make a horse stop to drink
Can't get my thoughts complete
No matter how much I think

I try to think my morality is a compass, but I’m scared,
That this is only true if someone needs me
To navigate, I don't know where I’m going
So what good is a compass to me? I don't want

To go places, I just want to go
With people, and if I can be with people
I’ll think of myself a guide, a mentor, a helper.
But riding on the whims of others is no form

Of Discipline, the kind our parents gave us
Wasn't real because discipline isn't something
Given its something found inside yourself,
And I’m still searching because Im weak

To my own desires as I am to others
And I’m even weaker still to you
I didn't even need to be with people
When I could be with you, it scared me.

I’m a Grandfather clock floating off the seaside
And every hour on the hour thoughts of you bang
Through my head like piano notes, starting few
In the afternoon, Ring, Ring-Ringg, Ring-Ringg-Ringgg

You sound in my mind a dozen times every midnight
And while I flow above this Green Sea, I see a light-
House, Shining Pink-Orange at me, but theres a gray
Fog between us, not gray ash, but blue-gray, like Chartreux

I checked your spotify today, I'm sure you can tell,
One of the bangs told me to, and we both know
How well I say no, But i'm glad it did, because it
Let me know, that you feel the gray too, and maybe Pink-Orange as well?

I’ve been thinking about who I am recently
I just end up thinking of you
I can't really see where I’m going
I can't remember where I’ve been
  
I just end up thinking of you
Because what else could I possibly do?
I can't remember where i've been
You're all I want to remember
  
Because what else could I possibly do,
but be completely under your spell
You're all I want to remember
You're impossible to forget
  
I tried to write a poem about me today
I wrote a poem about you instead
My mind is socrates cave
Shadows of you, set before my chained head.

“I need you close to me” said the porcupine
“I need space, I miss rabbit and fox” pled the squirrel
“Once I feel better you can leave”

“I’m lonely”
“Move closer, I’ll ease your isolation”
“Ok” Sting. Recoil.

“Why do you distance yourself from me?”
“Im sorry, it hurts”
“This is why you're in pain, you turn away from me”

“I just need a moment”
“Not until we're close”
“I’m bleeding, I need rabbits soft fur”

“Rabbit doesn't love you the way I do”
“Im anxious, I need fox’s kind words”
“Come near me, I will help you heal”

“Im worried about your spines”
“My spines? You think I have spines?”
“Don't you see them?”

“I don't know why you would say that to me,
I try so hard to be here for you”
“You're right, Im sorry”

I heard that cats wear their hearts on their sleeves
Sleeves being fur, and the cats siamese

they turn black where they are cold,
And light where they feel warm, I’m told

And if i owned a cat, I think it would be neat
To know how they felt, know where to heat

I’d light a fire near the burnt bits, to burn away the coal
Smore making in reverse, flames whitening their soul

People aren't like cats though, where they’re cold is hard to find
So much I’d give to know your needs, and look inside your mind

But even if we’re not siamese, you should know I’d like to say,
I want to make eachother warm till we’re white and gray

Before a rose colored mirror
Blue orbs tracing devotely
Not their reflection, but the jagged canyons
Curling from the edges, like roots
Repentantly sprouting to hide  a corpse.
Red meteors plummet in slow motion from fingertips
Of a reflection, as he stands before the cracks,
Feeling the wet truth of their cause in his palms.
On the floor, his eyes meet
His eyes gazing up from a jagged island of glass
Finding himself only with head bowed, in
A broken past mistake.
7 years bad luck.
Do you think he knows,
That behind the veins,
There's more than blood?
I do.

There was a boy who hated cops,
Cow-faced, pig-bullies, power-drunk hacks.
Racism, raids, and traffic stops.

And maybe, like the boy, if they weren’t attacked,
Hadn’t gone to work expecting the worst,
Maybe they'd have had their community’s back.

But life’s not that simple; some wounds are cursed.
They made him mean, like a shelter cat,
Born into pain, already immersed.

He was a boy who never fought back,
But luck still left him, too early, too soon,
Born in the stick season, raised in the black.

How could he know that all fields bloom?
When shown only malice, one cant help but stare
Facing down evil, missing the good in the room.

Lucks for the lucky and life isn't fair
But no orchid's less beautiful than weeds just
Because orchids need more love and more care.

Threads
in my mind
weaves mazes,
and I find
you there–
Among all the words and phrases,
And the many works I’ve read–
Holding all the strings in hand.
Connected to everything, everywhere.
When I close my eyes at night,
in each journal that I write,
in the sky and land,

And at the end of every poem–
You're there

****  
I feel bad,
I can't control myself,
I could
But I don't
****

I try to think
That I'm a good person
But good people
Do good things
And that hasn't been me.
Not lately.

****
How many chances do I get?
I haven't run out yet.
We can start again today
And hope
The red doesn't follow.
Pray for some discipline
And keep
Trying
****
  

Ouch, thinking about honesty
Is painful
Honesty about myself
Honesty about you
Honesty about us
Honestly, this poem isn't even a winner

I’ll have to try again
I hope we try again

Today
With friends
We wandered up
A steep cobbled road
That was canopied by trees.
We happened to a wooded park
Where poetry was pressed into the stones.
You would have loved it there, and noticed
How the world was speaking with you.
Noticed through the air that those
Flowers my friends had
Called lavender, were
Just rosemary,
blooming.