Matthew

He looked at my eyes, face hardened.

Love was no longer new and burning yet the taste of candle wax still fresh at our tongue tips.

He was leaving soon, college.

The hardest part was that fear, wondering if he would let us be known publicly there if not here. Irrational thoughts of why not proclaim it like bible, proclaim to those in our church, school and home we loved each other.

I loved him.

No matter how much it would hurt, and that was were my mistakes lay.

Naivety is a sickness that gets you nowhere but 6ft under or 60 at the top of that building looking to indent you'll form.

"James"

"Hm"

"I love you," he had heard that more times than his own name yet a small smirk arose each time.

"Yes, and I love you too. "

I pulled him to me, holding the stubble threatening to form at his cheek. He was taller now, more a man and that almost scared me.

It was never his 'femininity' that attracted me to him.

That was terrifying.

The fact that his looks now far from feminine still so beautiful to my eyes, that I couldn't place our purple to the yellow, it contrasted too much. No matter what filter I put on us then we looked nothing near heterosexual and that tasted sour at my tongue.

He was truly a man and so was I, to be.

"Piglet"

"Hm"

"I want to come out to my parent, " my eyes to the sky then to him, "with you."

It took a moment to register.

"No, don't be stupid."

"But you're going to college soon and we've been together for so long I feel like- i want to feel like a normal couple."

"We are one, just in private."

"That's not enough and you know that."

He looked to me pupils darker face broader voice croaking into his adulthood him now 18.

"Tough, I love you but don't act a fool. Don't give yourself even a moment else you'll get the thought stuck in your head."

I pulled him by the nape of his neck, "wouldn't it be heavenly if i could kiss you like this in the summer wind knowing that we didn't need to worry if a soul saw us.

His eyes twinlked, no longer that everlasting flame burning it's way as a torch to my tunnel. His eyes didn't feel the same some days.

His body felt stiff.

His face almost showing the skull behind it but I knew he loved me and I did him. There was just a burnt lavender to it.

"Matthew I'm scared."

"I am to, but you're here with me."

I felt his hands brush my hair back, looking down to my nose then lips. He looked back to my eyes searching, " fine "

I smiled then he did.

"No-one can stop me from loving you, not even our parents."

I can't remember who said that but I know now that those words didn't mean much.

I remember we kissed and went our separate ways home, as my body leech-like wanted to attach itself to his shoulder blade and rest like fluff at the crook of his neck.

I was attached, I now know.

I wonder if it was even to him.

Or not.

"You are stupid."

My eyes raised up the trim of my brows to see her hairs pulled into faux locs.

"No I'm not."

She laughed, I never trusted her laughs like that, "You just admitted to what, pressuring your boyfriend into coming out with you even though he's been adamant for what a year that he doesn't want to do it. For obvious reasons.

Would you call that logic. Or you needing the validation of your parents and everyone to tell you whether what you're doing is right or wrong?"

"What no it's because I love him and I want us to be open together."

Faye looked as though a lightbulb went off atop her head, " Matthew do you even want to be with him?"

"Yes"

"You hesitated."

I looked toward her, sure that my eyes told her she was wrong and yet she looked at me with pity. The type of pity given to the lamb about to be slaughtered, the type of pity you give to the incapable, to those who took that long to realise the truth that lay in-front of them.

"Matthew you don't need to force yourself, you can love him and not be with him."

"I need him."

"But you don't want him"

I looked to the passing seasons behind her and the wall that enclosed me that pushed my head further into an abyss. I never liked the taste of truth. Being pulled and turned upside down like a chicken.

"Matthew, I know you so well that I sometimes wonder if I know you better than you know yourself. I know you love him, no on can deny you that. So let him go."

"I can't."

"That makes you human but above all selfish. In doing this," a dreadful look burst upon her face gaze deepening " you impede him and yourself."

My body curled and every hair stood still, I longed for a touch to calm me. If not a body for me to rest in and the small of my back sweat.

Why did I ever touch him.

I left because I was overwhelmed and I swore that whatever I felt would never leave my stomach, how was I even to take it out.

I was yet to purge my endless sin.

Clogging each pore and making me look dirty and disheveled.

I called him, we met at a carpark one rarely used. I wondered for that moment what difference there was between us and those boys with men twice their age. The same sin would be committed and yet I called ours pure and

Love.

"What is it?"

"I just wanted to see you."

"Why," a coldness I never thought he could muster, at least not toward me.

"Can't I want to see my boyfriend?"

He rolled his eyes a moment then he urged me to his car. We sat a moment as he took a breath, readying himself. Without hesitation he sat atop lap and nicked my neck with two front teeth and tongue. It felt like ivy.

"What are you doing," I asked.

He pulled himself up with his overgrown hair and bushy brows and dark eyes.

"Isn't this what you want."

For some reason I felt disgust at those words, i wonder how dare he treat us like an gratified

hookup.

"No, I want you."

He looked left, right then down like either I was stupid or he was delusional.

"This is me," presented like product and a salesman.

He pulled at the hoodie zip, then my pant buckle. Soon he leaned in closed and closer eyes closed until my corpse post-mortem jolted. His head fell over my shoulder and he kissed the seat behind us.

Eyes opened wide and pulled back, his hair still somewhat disheveled and eyes wide he looked like a child until I realised he still was one. And so was I.

I let his looks deceive me.

He was the James i'd always known and yet his manhood alluded me and lured me in I was so blind and so selfish and so young.

"What is it"

"I just wanted to see you"

"how?"

"Well not in the way you think."

He smiled a smile I hadn't seen in months.

"What way," he held my head. His hand felt hard but softer.

"I want to talk, we've not done enough of that recently."

He let go and looked me in the eyes, going as far as to flip his hair out his way.

"Because I've been your glorified escort, Matthew."

Those words still ring in my ears today and I wonder why he never told me that until I listen and hear his heart beat against the walls of whatever contains me in each moment.

He could barely swallow that truth and yet I expected his to bring it out himself through labour. He had laboured enough arching his back to fit my insatiable.

"What have I been to you."

He looked a moment to where his lip marks laid beside me, though he couldn't see them.

"I don't know anymore."

I held him close.

I felt love for those seconds until words had to fall like silk in his dressing gown. Maybe I should've let him kiss me. I never would've had to spare a second thought.

"You're so immature."

One of us said.

And so I stared into his eyes and he did mine.

They looked so old and euphoric knowing that time is no longer ours.

So, why do we bother?