What can I say? What can I do to make you love me?

I lay in bed at night and think. And there's one theme that's been drifting me to sleep since Friday. I roll to my side and press the soft blanket against my cheek and smile. This "idea" is so pleasing to me because I know it's not all in my head. I know these day-dreams and fantasies aren't the extent of happiness I'll feel.

Because I'm not dreaming, under this lime green quilt; I'm remembering. And I adore it.

But I haven't grown up. No, no I haven't. I thought I'd learned from past experiences that this is how it works; not this, this . But I can't do it. I can't.

I'm caught up in him, everything about him; and what kills me the most is I saw it today. I saw it returned. I saw in his eyes what must be in mine. And, Heaven help me, I nearly ignored it. He stood there,waiting for me to speak, and I sat there, waiting desperately to do so. I kept looking to those around me, willing them within my heart to say something to him; he needs someone to say something! It never occurred to me that I could speak. It never occurred to me that I could start this conversation we both craved. This conversation we both awkwardly lingered around.

But I couldn't do it. I couldn't.

And he left.

And it hit me slowly, like I was laying in the road and someone gently backed their car over me: with each step he took the farther under I went, until I found myself unable to breath.

What did I just do?

I've spent my life hanging in my heart for a specific boy to look my way. I've gone through a line of them, yes, it hasn't been the same boy all this time; but I've reacted in the same manner each and every time.

I "love" him. He tries to be friends, as all good boys do. I assume he feels the same way I do. I do nothing to win over his heart: I don't flirt, I don't joke, I want that relationship; and he wants it too right? So why wont he act?

The next step leads to the boy pulling out of my life. And I hardly, if never, end up speaking to them again.

And this one time it was different. It is different; Oh, let me slip into death this very night if it's all past-tense. Let this game still play! -I was choking on his departure, not because he was going away from me, across the room; but because, at that moment, I knew he saw no reason not to go away from this forever. If he feels, in his heart, somewhere, the way I do now, and he doesn't feel I feel it... Why would he stay?

Why should he stay?

I'm caving in upon myself, and have been since about eleven o'clock. I can't let him go so simply. I don't even know what it is about him, what it could possibly be that the mere thought of it leaving is crushing me so much. I need this day to end and tomorrow to begin. I need to find him and talk like today never happened. Find him and say the millions of things that should have been said the moment before he turned away.

This relationship can't just be cute, silent faces from across the room. And it's my fault that, as of now, that's all it has been.

Oh please, please don't give up on me yet! My coldness is a lapse in judgement, a lapse in consciousness. I'm sorry if I hurt you. I'm sorry if you read my stupidity as lack of interest; how could it possibly be? You see the way I look at you. It's like your Ora is the Earth, and my attention is the moon, and try as I might I just can't pull away from you. Believe me, I've tried. And I've failed horribly. And if you'll just let me climb over this self-imposed stumbling block, I'm sure neither of us will ever have to pull away. I don't ever want to. And I want you to know. So I smile at what you say and do, even when it's not funny.

It's because it's coming from you that I smile.

Please keep smiling back.