vodka and orange juice.

In the glowing light of the computer screen, I can see his smile as it dances across his lips. And there's no other light in the room, except maybe the strip of light that is crawling in through the space between the door and the carpet. But that light isn't pure, it has ricocheted off of the wall, which was reflected off of the bathroom ceiling. The room is blue like water in some three-year old's crayon landscape. But it's so warm. Maybe it is because of that smile, those parted lips now pirouetting in their finale as they make their retreat back to position one. Maybe it is the echoing of his laugh or the echoing of my own as they bounce back and forth on the walls of the blue room - that's right, maybe it's a Freudian thing.

Two feet apart; we are afraid to touch. So when he brushes my hand, when he touches my knee, when he does all of those obnoxiously cute things he does - even in the dim light of this room - they scare me. I retreat, fall back, drop onto the floor. I look up and he is smiling again, smiling at me from just above. And I wish his hands weren't so afraid. I wish my body wasn't nailed to the ground. But I can't change our awful circumstances, so it is best that I just lie here and breathe. It's comforting, in a way - some consistency. At least I know that no matter what my next move is, be it closer to him or on my way out the door to home, he will always care for me as I am and never for what we will never be able to become.