Shades of Hugh

If it makes you less sad, I will die by your hand.
I hope you find out what you want.
I already know what I am.
And if it makes you less sad, we’ll start talking again.
And you can tell me how vile I already know that I am.
I’ll grow old and start acting my age.
I’ll be a brand new day in a life that you hate.
A crown of gold.
A heart that’s harder than stone.
And it hurts a whole lot, but it’s missed when it’s gone.

Call me a safe bet.
I’m betting I’m not.
I’m glad that you can forgive.
I’m only hoping as time goes, you can forget.

If it makes you less sad, I’ll move out of the state.
You can keep to yourself.
I’ll keep out of your way.
And if it makes you less sad, I’ll take all your pictures down.
Every picture you paint, I will paint myself out.
It’s cold as a tomb, and it’s dark in your room,
when I sneak in your bed to pour salt in your wounds.
So call it quits or get a grip.
Say you wanted a solution.
You just want to be missed.

Call me a safe bet.
I’m betting I’m not.
I’m glad that you can forgive.
I’m only hoping as time goes, you can forget.

You are calm and reposed.
Let your beauty unfold.
Pale white, like the skin stretched over your bones.
Spring keeps you ever close.
You are second hand smoke.
You are so fragile and thin.
Standing trial for your sins.
Holding onto yourself the best you can.
You are the smell before rain.
You are the blood in my veins.

Call me a safe bet.
I’m betting I’m not.
I’m glad that you can forgive.
I’m only hoping as time goes, you can forget.

For Nathan Dukes, whose hurt was a thousand times worse than mine. You never leave my thoughts, Nrthrn. Even through pining over him, I never forget to miss you.

Truth Doesn’t Make A Noise

I will always remember the beauty of us, and this is the end of everything beautiful.

I wish I could continue. I wish I could list every single thing about him that makes my heart pound. Knowing that he’s happy, knowing that he’s the same person he was when we met only with someone else, is not something I wish to know.

Secretly, I hope he’ll be happy. But even more secretely, I hope he’ll be miserable.

It is not difficult to see now which one I want more.

I love you, Hugh D’Arcy, and it is a feeling that will never cease - even if I am dead to you.

The Desperate Kingdom of Love

I will always remember the way we missed each other.

Every moment was like a new feeling of agonising pain. Whenever I wasn’t talking to him I was missing him like crazy - I could never remember what I was thinking about when it wasn’t about him.

It was always the same with us.

We’d wait all day to talk to each other and then when we finally could it was instantaneous relief, it was coming up to the surface after being underwater for so long.

It was life. It was everything keeping me going.

The Games That Play Us

I will always remember the random outbursts of stupidity.

It was early June and we were talking, as we had done every day for months by then.

Soon, randomly, he said to me,

“I’m such a retard, I just ate a candy cane with the plastic still on it.”

It was not unusual.

The Leaving Song

I will always remember how he remembered everything I said to him perfectly.

Even the most retarded things I said weren’t lost on him; he would bring them up months later and quote them perfectly, and I’d find myself sifting through memories to check that I actually did say that.

Most of the time he was right.

He was an incredibly attentive boyfriend. He never had time for anyone else over me, and it was beautiful.

We were both unused to working relationships. I was his first “real” one and he was the only person I really let know me (though he would have you believe now that he never knew me at all - this isn’t the case, he knew me from the inside out).

Even so, he was good at it. Incredibly, heart-breakingly good.

What Is And What Should Never Be

I will always remember the way he said “I love you”, because he sounded so shy.

The first time we spoke it aloud, really said it to each other, voices full of heart shattering emotion, we laughed. I was never sure why we laughed - the small chuckle that emitted from both of us was quite unexplainable.

But he said it and it made my heart race, but the way he said it was so beautiful. He always sounded like maybe he shouldn’t be saying it (which was true) and maybe it was wrong that a guy like him should be saying it to a girl like me (which wasn’t true).

It was beautiful and it was perfection and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

It would be easy, so easy, to give up on this plight knowing what I know now. But giving up in the face of having lost him, really lost him, forever…

Well, that would insinuate that I don’t love him. Yes, even after almost two years, I will not revoke. Sorry.

How Can You Be Sure?

I will always remember how interested he was in my life and what I was doing. My life was rarely interesting - since I met him, my life revolved around him and he became the only person I thought about. Even so, he was so intrigued by me, always wanting to know about what I was doing and how I was feeling. It was flattering, if not completely unnecessary. I made my life seem more interesting than it was. I needn’t have done that: though I’d never expected to fall in love with him, he didn’t want extravagency. He would have taken me plain and simple. It still wasn’t enough. He made me feel incredibly special, like I was important, but it wasn’t enough.

To Wish Impossible Things

I will always remember how strong he seemed on the outside, but only I knew how sweet he was on the inside. It was so easy for him to act like he was okay. Simple, like breathing. He’d just laugh and hide the inner turmoil I knew was there. But then, upon my urging, he opened up to me. He showed me a side of himself that was wrought with vulnerability and childlike innocence, so sad all the time but happier because, he said, of me. He hid himself away when we broke up, but I always knew who he really was.

Spirit In The Night

I will always remember how he admitted defeat and said he was sorry when I wouldn’t let him win a fight.

We argued often; whether it was the stress of living so far away and wanting to be together all the time, or just because I was paranoid about him, untrusting, as ironic as that was - I don’t know.

When we did argue, he rarely argued back. I always began it, every time, though I seemed to look for things to argue about more often than not.

He simply took it. He tried to reason with me, let me calm down, always apologised even when it wasn’t anything he’d done.

It was amazing. Even when he argued back, defended himself against my silly accusations, he’d feel so horrible about it that he’d apologise to me as soon as possible for fear of losing me to my anger.

He could never have lost me.

The First Cut Is The Deepest

I will always remember his smile.

I only saw it a handful of times; he very rarely smiled [I mean really smile] and he didn’t like to take photos. It was much like his laugh, though - something just as beautiful, that I could go into so much more detail about - tragically beautiful but incredibly rare.

When he did smile, though, it was like nothing else mattered.

He was so determined to convince me that he was nothing special, though he was, he was, he was more special than anyone I’d met. I saw his smile for the first time and I swear my heart stopped beating and I went into cardiac arrest. It would not have surprised me.

True beauty is very hard to find. Impossibly difficult. I did, though. I found it whenever I got to see even a hint of a smile from him, the one that made me ache because I so badly wanted to be the one to make him smile forever.

I knew our days were numbered though. I still see the ghost of his smile at night, when I sleep and have irrelevant dreams where all I can see is his face through all the noise and mess.

And his smile. Ah, his smile.