Adam

Rarely have I found the words to say what I need, what I want, where I am.

So time for some straight talking.

Adam, I love you. Adam, I love you. If I could hold you in my arms tonight and never let go I would. You who shared life with me in a way that no one else did then. Ashes is all that remain, ashes, memories and tears.

You never knew, what I did, what I'd done. I fought to keep you alive and you never knew. I saw you, I saw your life falling, I could see the danger and I contrived to keep you away from the fools in my class who were dealing drugs. I saw the sadness you held from losing your best friends and I couldn't stand for it. I stood up to them and got them talking to you again, that night at the Suffolk Punch as I drank JD.

How was it that I was the only one still talking to you? How was it that I was the only one seeing you? Why did you come and sit with me all that time? Why did you stand with me as I waited for my buses? Was I just Harriet's little sister? No, I don't think it was that, or at least it wasn't just that.

You chose to spend that time with me, talking, I barely remember that life, I hardly remember what we talked of. I know I read you every poem. What did you see in me? What did you think of me?

As you treated me with more respect than anyone. You threw away your fags as you saw me coming because you knew I wouldn't hug you if you were smoking because of my asthma. Such a small gesture, but something no one else has ever done.

You'd be by the tree, I remember, I remembered this summer, six months ago I tried to walk across that space and broke down because I knew you wouldn't be standing there again. I used to walk that way just incase you were there to say hello to. Like you used to walk past my table in Starbucks just to see if I was there.

What did we have? What was it? A friendship made of random meetings. Where did you go? Your number was the first number on my phone, when you had a phone. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.

I just want to looking into your eyes and said "I love you" because the school girl crush disappeared into a friendship and a respect that could only be called love, and I loved you, so deeply that I'm too scared to let go, I'm too scared to say goodbye.

You who took me as I was, who never minded what I looked like or what I wore, as you would throw your arms around me and I would drink deep of the smell that was your leather jacket impregnated with aftershave and cigarette smoke, that smell that was you. Burying my face in that jacket, your chin brushing against my forehead.

I want that moment again, I want you again. Now I've passed the age you were when you died, I can't believe that. It's almost three years and my heart still breaks because I just want the chance to say that I love you and to brush my lips against your cheek again.

I want you to know that I loved you because it was not a love that required a response, it was not a love that needed you to love me, it was offered freely, with no request or intention. I just wish that you'd known, maybe you did.