silenceatfullvolume

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I think that the worst thing that can happen to a man is to be unable to say the words "I love you" when he really means it. Nothing has ever hurt me the way those words do when they are trying to claw out of my chest to get to him, and yet I am not allowed to utter them. Few things are ever so unfair as this.

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You went out to get breakfast with me today. I honestly thought I would never get to look at you across a table like that again. The waitress gave me the bill for both of us and I paid it because I do not mind and no matter how broke I am I would pay any price to eat with you. We went and got groceries and I had to pretend smelling all the deodorants with you wasnt the best thing that has happened to me in months. You take off your ball cap and marvel at how long your hair has gotten. It's the longest it's ever been since I've known you. It suits you, but frankly I've always thought you were beautiful, no matter what you looked like. You mention getting it cut and I make the mistake of really looking at you, straight on, and I am overwhelmed with the urge to run my fingers through it. I remember the way I used to gently comb my hand through the hair at the base of your neck and you would melt into it like I was taking some incredible weight off of you. I felt the same way when you would let me lay on you and take a nap. I haven't truly slept well since you left. Now I will go alone and pet the horses because I have to do the things I want to do even if I have to do them by myself, but I wish you were there to share it with me. Maybe if im lucky I'll go finish my errands after, and then I'll come home and shower and eat. And then maybe, just maybe, I'll get to come back and see you again. Or even just stay up too late texting. Some little bitty piece of me is still holding out hope that you might love me again, I won't lie about it here. But I am choosing to be happy just being your friend. I can write my stupid little feelings and thoughts here and just be a guy you can count on. Whatever you ask me to be is what I am. I love you, even still, even now. Im gonna go pet the horses. And im gonna think of you. Like I always do.

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Sitting here tonight texting you about your passions and I wonder if you have any idea id sell my soul right this instant to put my lips on your skin and feel you breathe. I will settle for the excitement in your tone.

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Its 5:20 AM and all I know for sure is I love that boy with my whole chest and there is nothing to be done but take whatever he will give me. Sigh.

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He went to a concert last night. He had a good time. I had to get up at 3 that morning so I fell asleep somewhere around 10. When he got back to his truck around midnight, he called me. The call woke me up and didnt last too long because he wanted me to go back to sleep. I wonder if he knows how much it meant thst he wanted to share his joy with me. How much it meant that he asked me to check on that candle he wasnt sure he put out while he was gone. How much it means that he still trusts me with him even when I have made my mistakes. I am not sure if I will ever get to tell him again, but I love him. I love him with my whole chest and my whole soul and I will always answer those midnight calls, whether they be to tell me about his happiness or his sorrow or just to ask me if I could feed the cats while he is away. Anyways, I guess I just wanted to say that in words somewhere. He knows about my other blog so I guess I'll just quietly leave this here. Today I get to be lazy and stay home. Tomorrow I will try to have the balls to ask him if he would like to go to the county fairgrounds and see the horses with me. He will likely say no but I think I have to try anyways.

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Man enough to admit that sometimes I never intended to come back from that drive as I park the truck out front and let the song play out.

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Id give my life to lay my head upon your shoulder. But I have to let you go. Its time. It may hurt. But it is time.

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I should have been in bed an hour and 15 min ago. Im fucked up. I've confessed more tonight than a man should in a year. You dont care and neither does she. Ill die before anything matters. Life is too hard and too fast and its all too much but my only choices are to live or die and to die seems too easy all of a sudden. So im here. Trying. Breathing. Dying one breath at a time. I love you and it doesnt matter and I don't know what else I am and what else to do but learn music and scream

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I love when you send me pictures of birds. I love anything you say to me. I want to ask if I can go with you sometimes but I fear I may overstep if I do. Maybe tomorrow I will ask if you have recycle I can get rid of for you. If im lucky you'll let me help you with it. There are some big changes coming for me this year. I wonder if I play my cards right if you'll stick around through them. I wonder if you know that I see your smile in my mind in my worse moments and it reminds me the world isn't always so dark. I don't know if you'll ever love me again and im afraid to hope for it, but I'm glad you dont hate me anymore. If that is all I get, I am grateful.

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Every night, when I lay down to sleep, I turn all my alert sounds all the way up, just in case you need me. I hope you know I never ever mind taking that call. Id sit awake for weeks at a time just to sit with you. I love you. Im sorry I cant make it better, but I can offer you my phone being on and loud and I can offer you me in the middle of the night. Its all I have but its yours.

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I shouldn't, but I do

I know I shouldn't think about it but it's been a long, brutally hard week, and I can still smell you sitting next to me in the driver's seat if I think hard enough about it and I can't help but dream. I'd give anything to taste your kiss and feel you unwind around me tonight. To feel your skin against mine. To hear you rasp out my name. To call you mine and mark you as such. It's been almost a year since the first time you ever wanted me and I can still hear it. Feel it. I don't think I'll ever want another as long as I breathe. I can't have you, and I'll have to live with that. But damn, I want you. I wonder if you know what you do to me. I suspect you have at least a clue.

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It's always going to be you

Yesterday I was hungover as hell. Woke up late, planned to just mope around the apartment and feel sorry for myself, but as I was checking all my socials, you text me. You almost never text me, so I check to see what you need. I didn't tell you my heart skipped when your name popped up. I always hope texts will be from you but it always catches me off guard when they are.

It takes me off guard again when you keep the conversation going with me for some time. I almost always end up sitting here like a fool, trying to find something interesting or funny to say, or some question to ask to keep you around for just one more reply. You've always been like some kind of drug to me. I just want one more hit before I can't get any more.

You engage with me. I'm so happy about it I could cry. I try my best to keep up with your passionate discourse about my personality type, and I give you the most honest and genuine answers I can when your quiz questions come through. It's the most endearing thing I've ever seen and I'm somewhat glad you're texting me and not in the room, because I think I'd pass away if you saw me smiling like a dope at you typing in the corner.

When you mention wanting to go somewhere, I mention offhand that I would also like to go. I do not invite myself, just mention that it sounds like fun. When you ask if I would actually like to go it literally takes my breath away. A gift I could have never predicted. You never want to go out in public with me these days. I had assumed those days were gone, a cost of my severe fucking everything up. I take the offer on the condition I get a shower (I really don't want you to have to smell the several cigarettes I drunkenly smoked last night, something I only do on odd occasions when I spend a little too long in the neon light.) I spend the whole shower praying I don't get out to a text that you've changed your mind.

Instead, you ask me to do you a small favor. You ask it like I could ever say no, but I think you know I would never. I'd climb a mountain for you on a whim. I'd disassemble and reassemble your truck in the parking lot with nothing but a wrench and WD-40 if you needed me to. I wonder if you know how much I love doing little things for you.

When we're done with our little outing, you ask if I'll go other places with you. I'd go anywhere with you. Anytime. I can't tell if you know I am trying my damnedest to soak up this memory, lest it be the only one I get. When I can, I sneak glances at your face. I bask in the music you play for me, and more in the music you play for you. I have to fight the urge to put your hand in mine while you drive, but I manage.

We end up looking at birds in the rain. This is exactly how we began, and that is not lost on me. I wonder if you think about it, too. Or maybe this was just where you wanted to go, and I got to come along for the ride. Either way, I am lost in the memory of you and me back when that's what we really were. I try not to let it show too much. You seem to feel bad about the rain, but I couldn't care less. With you, the rain is just peace. With you, I let it fall.

When you take me back home, I have to fight off a little bit of sadness. That's always the case when I have to leave you. Some piece of me is so attached to you I can't kill it no matter what I try. Tonight, I am grateful for that piece of me, even if it hurts.

I don't send you any texts, because I don't want to push you. I'm terrified of crossing some unspoken line and losing you again. When you text me instead, I almost cry. You're a little drunk and I know you well enough to tell, but I don't mind. In fact, I'm honored that you're still thinking about me. I keep it light and as playful as I can manage, because I am a terrible conversationalist but I don't want to say goodnight. When I finally do say I have to go to bed because I have to work so early, your response seems disappointed and I wonder if I had stayed up too late if I could have come over.

You were drunk, and that is not a mistake I will make twice. But even still, I would sell my soul and half my mind too just to feel your lips on mine again. There is more testosterone in me than I can fight and I would be lying if I said I didn't want you. I love you. I want to touch you and taste you and feel your skin on mine and I want to hold you and make you breakfast and sit by the tub while you stay in it entirely too long and I cannot tell you any of that, nor can I tell you the shame I feel for thinking it because you revoked that right and I do my best not to entertain those thoughts because you deserve to be respected. Even still, that is a battle I lose more than I win. You are the best thing I have ever touched and every part of me wants to touch you again.

All this to say that it has been you all along. From the second your skin first touched mine, your hand on my bicep, your fingers sliding between mine like we had always been that way, I have belonged to you. I think maybe I always will. I tried to feel things for others, but they are not you, and I do not want them.

It's always been you and it always will be.

Thanks for the day. I really hope it happens again.

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Nobody fuckin cares but im gonna God damn off myself tonight. Im too drunk and nobody gives a fuck how I feel about anything and youd think id be used to that but im so fucking tired and nothing matt3rs at all. Id die for you and you dont care. My other person doesnt want me because I wasnt born a man. Nobody wants me for me. Im so tir3d. I dont even care i cant spell rn. Fuck it. Im gonna stay here until its time to leave and I'll make sure she gets home and then I dont know man. Maybe this is the night. Maybe its time. Maybe its time to let it all go. Idk. Im sick of this.

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I've managed to invite myself into your space tonight, and you have graciously allowed me to be here.

I'm a little drunk and im watching you draw and listening to you talk. Occasionally you sing a verse of the music you're playing. It's a blessing to be in your presence.

I've already ruined this for us, but I wonder if you know in this moment that I would die for you. That i love you unconditionally. That i answer your calls as much for me as I do for you. That i am actively pushing away a chance at another relationship because my heart is still firmly with you.

None of that matters, and I will not bring it up with you. But I am here now, and i can see and hear and smell you when you walk by and I cannot ignore it even if I will not acknowledge it.

I'd give anything if I had the guts to ask you for a hug. I only get those when you're at your worst and need them from me now. I wish that wasnt the case. I wish I could offer you that anytime, like I used to do. I wish a lot was different now.

I have nowhere to be for once and I will stay as long as you will let me.

Im sorry we had to come back together under these circumstances. You'll never know the guilt of that. Just like you'll never know I bought those tickets and gave them away so you could go. I cant tell you any of it. But its all here anyways. I love you. Im so sorry, and I love you. Thanks for the beer. Thanks for the company. Thanks for everything. Im sorry I can't fix any of it. I'm sorry I can't offer either of us any more than this.

Goodnight, love. Sleep well. I hope you call again. I hope this wasnt the last time. I always do.

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Stop Light

I pull up to the stop light and I see the illusion of water on the distant pavement give way to the heat waves coming off of it, and there is rock music on my radio and I have to wonder to myself if you know I love you and that even now in this moment you are on my mind. That is all. The light is green. I finish my drive home and my mind never leaves your face. I will not text you, even though I want to. I will leave that option for you, as we've learned to do. And I will dream of you again tonight, regardless of how much I drink or how tired I am. And that will be all.

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I wonder if I'll ever not feel alone again or if this is just the rest of my life now. Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to keep living. So I guess that's what I gotta do.

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And I get you a gallon of milk at the store because you texted that you forgot, and I bring it to you. And while I am there, I remove the four bags of recycle I know you need gone, the same ones I know you dont have the energy to deal with, and I put them in my truck when I leave to get rid of them for you. I am careful not to linger, and I tell you its because there are frozen items in my truck, which is true but its really because I am afraid to wear out my welcome. I want to stay and I want to wrap myself around you and I want to say something, anything that will make you laugh. I want to tell you I started a second blog just to put my thoughts about you on. I want to tell you I still love you and I always will. I want to tell you I cant fill their shoes and I will never try, but I love you nonetheless. I do not tell you, because it is not time and I am not sure it ever will be but I hold on to the hope that my moment will someday come. And so, instead of saying it, I bring you the milk and I take the recycle. And i will continue to do all the little things you will allow me to do, because it is all I can do. And I will love you the best I can, the best you will let me. No matter the cost. We will make it out of this, if it is all we ever manage. We will be okay, whether it is together or apart. I hope it is together. I will love you either way.