There and Back Again. - 1. Chapter 1: Adam

Adam

I’m unsure how to say it, but I’ll do my best.

I believe feeling is foreign, especially when you feel so hard. That’s not to say that I do not feel for anything; I promise you, I do. It isn’t that I am obsessive or compulsive, or both for that matter. I do not mind my head when I walk through a door, I merely duck because it is natural. There is no need to mind it, then. I revel in our latitude and longitude, as brief as it may be.

Do you remember when you look at people? I mean, really look at them. Sure, a stranger passing by might go under your scrutiny for a moment, but have you ever really looked? You look at them and you are washed over with this sense of passion that you never knew you had. You think to yourself, “Stop that, stop thinking that,” and your mind rejects the information your eyes are trying to calculate. It’s that moment that makes your heart toy at the free fall line.

It’skind of like that here, now. I cannot say that I’ve ever seen love at first sight, no, never. I am far too vicious to think like that. My judgments are harsh and fiery and done with haste. Yet, when I see a piece of artwork so great, so pleasing to my eyes, I cannot help but notice…and to add it to my collection. What a world that would be.

It is hard to admire people, to tilt your head and sigh. To imagine them when you listen to a song or when you stand outside and think, “What a lovely day,” and you dream of kissing them on that day. It is hard to admire people that drift into your dreams, to invade your dreamscape so bluntly, disrupting all thought patterns and redirecting the traffic to them and only them. How rude, but you love it. We love it. I love it.

You can twist in your bed sheets and think of these types, these folk. These people, the ones that tug at your heart sometimes or your soul. The way you take each word they say and create alternate meanings numbering in the thousands.

You should not pity yourself for this, to think like this. To admire like this, to want like this. Perhaps even desire like this. It is natural, though secret to some and sacred to others. It is wise to share it with few, but so forbidden to share it with the one you admire so deeply, or briefly.

I could say my admiration is brief, fleeting. It will fade in time when I fail to reapply shiner upon the reflective surface. It will become dusty and forgotten. Occasionally it will come up when I think, if I ever get the chance. But now when I think, it is of wild things. Of adventures and mayhem, of royal dinners and dragons. Coastal cruises and towns that you would only think existed in postcards, where lawn tennis still had a following. But you will come along; a wandering soul, a prophet of nothing really. A prodigal son, if you would like that title.

Your slender body in those slender clothes, they would not entice the imagination; no, they merely cover what we know is below. Pale skin, without blemish or scar. Your face is angular, it must have been on a particular day when the Lord stood before the slab of marble, he must have been in a mood. But it holds a sense of beauty that others see, not just me.

Your hair is golden, lighter than your brothers. Your eyes are icy and blue, lazy in the sunlight but alive in the dark. I love that you know. Well, not love, how about enjoy?

I hate the way you talk, so slow and methodical. But at the same time, I crave it. When you need to explain something, you stutter sometimes. Your voice is dusty and ancient sometimes, even for a young man. It drawls and drags as if something has idled your brain. But I don’t care.

I like the way you look at me sometimes, just the way you look. The way time works at a party when the crowds part just enough for us to catch a glimpse of one another through the throngs of drunk teenagers. We look with our eyes and say, “You alright?”

I think about you sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes. It is a healthy amount, I assure you. I think about you first usually, since I think in alphabetical order. Your name though is plain and boring, but I haven’t the heart to say it to your face. I know you were the first to touch the hand of God, but you have your flaws.

You are shy when royalty is around, your opinions are quiet and your sense of approval is wide ranged. I dislike that sometimes our medium of interaction is of the illegal sort, but we enjoy it. We sit in a cloudy room and talk of things that never make sense.

I know that I labour too much thought into my affection, as secret and silent as it be. Beyond the dark walls and the black filigree, I am not that bad. My heart is somewhere, I just haven’t found it yet. Sometimes I feel I waste too much time doing things like this; caring, wondering, picking at my creeping curiosity. This is no ode to lost love, or unrequited admiration, hell no. There is hope in this, a small glimmer, but we will see.

Sometimes I wish for a moment I could kiss you, just for a moment, just to see if it was alright. If I made the right choice of devoting time to think about you. I should charge people for the hours I think about them.

Oh Adam, I’d be a millionaire.