1. "I can't believe you! You insensitive monster!"
2. "You're not... Serious, are you? Look, I can read it now..."
3. "I poured my heart into that thing! I agonized over the lack of eye imagery in the second quatrain!"
4. "You didn't show it to me! You fed me some bullshit reverse-psych--you said it was okay to peek, so I peeked, I didn't pore!"
5. "Look, aggie, c'mon, look, c'mon. Let's go back and"
6. "Aaaaaaaa"
7. "Were you raised by wolves?"
8. "Sea serpent's gotcha, penny. Whatcha gonna do?"
9. "Oh, yeah! This'll get us to the "I love you" stage! I feel a proposal coming on right now!"
1. "Hang on-- let me get--"
2. "Ow you are on my hair"
3. "Sorry, sorry! I was trying to find your... Um..."
4. "Yourbrastrap."
5. "Well, it's not on my neck."
6. "(Sigh) don't take this wrong, I'm still, y'know, into you. But this little game wasn't one of our better ideas. We need room to maneuver."
7. "Yeah, okay. But finding private makeout spots is harder, now that daddy's home from summer school, and he or your mom could walk in on us at any ti--"
8. "I... I... I..."
9. "I just wanted my comfy shoes. The ones you borrowed. That time."
Tell me if I'm wrong about any of this, Aggie...
Oh, I will. Gleefully. Using the Dr. Cox voice.
I think Aggie and I are both scared of being hurt again. Of hurting each other. But we're both people who make social rules more than we follow them. Always have been.
History is on our side. The rate of GLBTQ acceptance correlates sharply with age...
We've both been popular, and both been unpopular. One status is clearly better than the other...
(ahem)
But neither one changes who you are. And we're both scared of not being the best, the most honest-with-ourselves, the most fulfilled people we can be.
That's how you raised us.
That does sound mature. But we're not quite done with the raising yet.
Well said.
1. "So okay."
2. "So this is everything I wrote, but didn't post to my blog, the two weeks after rich left me for the last time."
3. Or posted and deleted quickly.
4. "It's not in iambic pentameter or whatever, and I really don't want to look at it."
5. "But I wanted you to have it, because... Because I know I'm not that good at relating to feelings of loss."
6. "And I know that even this doesn't really compare. I'd only been with rich a couple of months at a time, and he's still alive."
7. "The closest I got to losing someone who'd been a big part of my life for years was... Was shelly."
8. "But still, you know... This is the best I can do."
9. "Fair enough."