How on earth can I love you? I barely know you, but I feel like I have for years... does that make sense? No? Good. It's been since freaking sixth grade that I've felt this way. That's six years, _____. Do you remember when I played the same instrument as you, and I sat by you in band and we'd fight and I'd say I hated you and did horrible things, finally switching instruments because of you? It was love. I couldn't stand to be beside you and not hold your hand or touch you...

So yeah, we're seniors now and I'm back to sitting beside you, this time in that one class. I never knew you were so nice; always I thought you were just an arrogant dickhead with a big ego, and although that didn't stop me from loving you, now that I know you're even more incredible than before I can hardly keep back. Please tell me you're not with ____ or _____. Yeah, I know, _____’s a guy and everything but I notice things...

That's not the point, though. The point is... I want to love you to know you to kiss you to touch you to look inside your brain to listen to your piano for hours on end to share chocolate bars with you I know I'm not supposed to eat to feel like a real person again and I don't think I can do it without you.

Tell me about yourself. Tell me what makes you tick. Outline your mind for me- every thought and idea. I don't even know when your birthday is, although I know where you live and practically everything about your brother and what your house looks like and that you love star trek. But tell me more. I don't just want to know, I need to.

____ thinks I just want to screw your brains out, that my attraction for you is purely chemical/physical/animal, whichever you prefer. For one of my good friends, he knows nothing of what I actually feel and how I want to mentally rip you apart and put you back together over and over and over and over again. I dare not say anything beyond this never to be sent letter.

This is the first time since I met you that we're friends by any stretch of the imagination, and I don't want to fuck that up; it's happened too many times. Do you like my voice? Most people do, but being the town's best soprano means nothing if you don't like listening to me. We're both artists and I want to make art together. Disregard how blatantly sexual that could sound and look at the actual sentence. Let me sing to your beautiful piano playing. I will sound inadequate, I know, compared to you, but still, nothing would make me happier. Play for me ‘Donde Lieta’ and I will sing the aria. But unlike Mimi I will not be saying goodbye to you. I will say hello.

So why? Your head of soft, full, curly hair; your piercing, deep-set eyes, your pale skin, almost as pale as mine; your tennis player legs, your talent? I don't know. All of these things. Those six people I went out with before...Nothing. They meant nothing because all I could think about when I was with them was you.

I called him _____ so many times. But he didn't mind, he took it in stride because he knew I'd rather be screaming your name than his, and he respected it until it got to be too much. Her... we didn't last long enough to know how she would've reacted to you, mainly because I think she might have been someone else I could have loved almost as much as I love you and I could never have someone take your place as my love. Everyone else... they don’t know, excepting ____ and I know that although he's your friend he's sworn to secrecy and I will hurt him if anything slips at all.

Oh. ____. Seeing you at prom with ____ made me want to lash out. I thought that I was starting to overcome my anger problem but things like that... I don't know, it just hit me so hard though I don't know what exactly snapped inside my head to make me want to hurt ____, one of my new friends and a very sweet person who I might like if it weren't for you.

Why was I the one in the last resort prom dress sitting at a table with the (insert subject) teacher's son? Why wasn't I the one next to the curly-haired Roman god in the black and red tuxedo? I've never seen you look so handsome; all through prom, even when I was dancing with my "date," I wanted to take you and rip your clothes off right on the dance floor, you looked that good.

Why did you have to quit band, by the way? I could see you across the room, sitting there in that first chair spot, and you were supposed to be in (insert university name) band but you're not there either for me to gaze at and to channel all my playing to, you're not there for me to put all my emotion in my breath and make it come through the mouthpiece and slide to you.... Why? I'm exhausted, _____. I've been exhausted since the year began, and I sincerely think I'm sick. It might be because of you.

You're sucking the energy out of me, making me spend too much time awake at night sighing, "_____!" under my breath and tracing my fingers over your yearbook pictures, wearing away the pages.

Damnit. I love you.

[submitted 09/26/03]