Some Things I Do When It’s 2 AM And All I Can Think About Is You

I embrace solitude. Find comfort within the walls of the fortress I’ve built around myself. I like it there. It’s safe. No one can get to me. I plant my own gardens. I tend to each flower the way only I can. The only way I can. Alone.

Always so alone.

I don’t want anyone to trespass. The last time I let anyone into these labyrinths, all I was left with were fields of withered petals. I still haven’t been able to mask the scent of decay from the air.

I do not want anyone’s hands on me. When they touch me, I let them only because I know I won’t feel anything.

I don’t want to feel anything.

But you look at me like searching for my history. You lock pale green eyes with mine like you’re trying to figure me out. When your gaze lingers it feels as if you want to see everything. I almost feel like you can see through me. It’s so intimate. It scares me. That Saturday night downtown, I welcomed your hand above my knee, a place where a lot of other men’s hands have been, not because I thought I wouldn’t feel anything, but because you look at me in a way very few have. Because I felt some sort of buzzing inside. I’m a little afraid because I don’t want to feel anything. And ever since then, I can feel your presence lurking around at the gates.

And here I am, 2 AM again, seventh time in two weeks that I can’t sleep. Seventh time all I can think about is you. Your kiss. How when you press your lips against mine I can tell you’re different. I don’t know where your heart is at, and I don’t really care, because you kiss me like I am precious.

I lay here and think about Room 711. Your warm skin blanketing mine. The way you arranged and rearranged your limbs with mine all throughout the night. How I want to keep learning their language.

I begin to wonder how you sleep when it’s only you in the bed. It’s got me thinking about the way your bed may look. I try to imagine the way it feels. I write in my journal, trying to push thoughts of you off a cliff because I’m thinking about you more than I’m comfortable with. But minutes later, I look down, and suddenly I’m reading, I want to waste a whole day away under his covers.

I throw my pen on the floor as if it were in flames.

It’s no use because my hands are too. I wish you were here to see what I am doing with them. Touching every place yours have been, every place you made me feel something. I’m traveling from my neck to the dip at the base of my throat, to my left breast, to my right, up and down again. When I finally make it between my thighs, I’m picturing not just your hands, but the way your mouth felt drowning me in its waves and catching me in its undertow. Even down there, at the bottom of the sea, where we were all salt and all sweat, I swear I could see the constellations rearranging themselves, the stars smiling, watching my fists grip on to the sheets.

It’s 2 AM and I pick my pen back up because I’m a lost cause. It’s 2 AM and before this night, I never knew what it was like to find inspiration in masturbating.

I write poetry about how I want to taste myself on your tongue again. I write about the way you reach out for me, how delicate I feel with my hand in your hand, your palm splayed at the small of my back, your thumb going over that spot above my knee. About those two dimples right at each corner of your lips, how I try not to think about kissing each when you lean into me. I write about you kissing these same lips so many others have, but how somehow when you do, I don’t feel numb. It’s been a while since I felt a kiss, and when your lips are locked with mine, I feel it everywhere.

It’s 2 AM and the thought sends me to your Instagram page because I want to see you. I wish I could hear you and maybe I click on a video. Your voice doesn’t stop at my ears, it does something to me.

It’s 2 AM and I’m writing things I’m not familiar with. Things I’d rather not be writing. Things I’d rather no one knew. Things I’d rather you never read.

It’s 2 AM and I’m going with it, even if it doesn’t go anywhere.

It’s 2 AM and all I can think about is you.

It’s 2 AM and I can feel the gates opening.

It’s 2 AM and I’m afraid.

It’s 2 AM and I’m falling asleep to the thought of you holding me, thinking that I’m glad we met.