If I close my eyes and think really hard and then not think… then I can almost imagine I feel you inside me. Hard and deep inside me, buried to your pubes, balls hitting my ass as your thighs slap against the backs of mine.

Your skin is always hot and glistening and you kind of radiate, hovering above me. You glow and look golden and your hair shines and falls into your face and you always look younger somehow. And open. You look like you don’t have any barriers or that you’re not holding anything back.

You look honest. That’s what I love the best.

And when you slide in hard and I know you’re close to coming, you kind of grin and then scrunch up your eyes, lean your head back and grip my thighs or my arms or any fucking part of me that your fingers land on. You pinch my skin and muscles tightly between your fingers and I like it. I like the deep bruises and marks you sometimes leave in that last moment of ecstasy. When I see those fingerprints marking my body all I remember is that feeling and your face. I see them as declarations of love and devotion and nothing less.

Your kisses… God… those deep hard kisses. Your teeth hitting mine, bruising my lips till they feel swollen and hot. You suck my tongue into your mouth, pulling on it like it was my dick and then I do feel it in my dick, jolting through me, rough and sweet and wet. And your tender kisses too, fluttering across my face, my eyelids, into my hair… down my throat and my chest and into the curls of my pubes and back up to my mouth. There’s not one part of my body your lips and tongue haven’t touched, and I remember the feel of your mouth across every inch of my skin.

Then there’s the way you look at me. Not when you look at me like that, you know, with heavy-lidded eyes, pupils so big, grin on your face – the I’m-gonna-fuck-you-Justin look. No… it’s the way you look at me, with wide-open eyes and chin tilted down a little, with your hair falling across your brow. You look at me in awe sometimes, you look at me like you believe I can do anything, and your believing in me makes me realize that I can do anything. That I’m fucking invincible and a genius and talented and that my life is so worth living. You make me feel loved and respected and that’s more than I could ever ask from anyone.

And of course, there’s the way you feel in bed with me. The way you hold me tight against your body in your sleep, the way you wrap our arms and legs together till I can’t tell what’s yours and what’s mine. The way you let me hold you too, when you rest your cheek on my collarbone, bury your face in my neck, your warm breath and soft hair tickling across my skin. You let me run my fingers across your body and your skin is always so smooth and taut under my touch. I love the way that feels, tracing the curve of every muscle in your arms, your back.

God, I miss all of those things and so many countless others. I miss them and I miss you so fucking much it hurts. I miss you more than I ever possibly thought I could miss anyone, and I hate that I’m here and you’re not, and I hate that I feel like this, but it’s the truth.

I lie in bed alone every fucking night and I try to think of what it’ll be like when I get back. I try to think of the perfect things to say and all the perfect things I really wished I did say.

I wonder how it’ll feel when we kiss again, when we fuck again, when we sleep together again. I wonder if your bed is as empty as mine and I hate the feeling that follows my worry that it’s not.

I wonder if any of this matters to you, and I wonder you have this stupid feeling like I do that maybe my leaving to do this will turn out to be the second biggest mistake of my life.

I wonder if you’re as lonely as me, and if you miss me as much as I miss you.

I wonder if I’ll ever get the courage to send you this, if I’ll ever get the courage to finish it, if I’ll read it to you in bed one night when I get home or if it’ll stay trapped in my head forever.

I hope I read it to you. I hope I read it to you in bed, late one night just after we’ve had the most amazing fuck ever. When I can smell the sex on the sheets, feel my cum sticky against my chest, taste you in my mouth. I wanna curl up beside you in the darkness of the loft and recite this whole fucking thing to you. And when I’m done, I want us to laugh at how stupid I was to have ever worried about anything, and I want you to tell me you think that it’s ridiculous and romantic, but pretty fucking hot anyway, and then that’s all I’ll think about it ever.

***       ***        ***        ***       ***

Justin folds the paper up again and tucks it under his alarm clock beside his bed. The creases are wearing deep and the pencil is smudged in some places, but he likes that it looks worn. Well-read. He’s read it a million times already and probably has it memorized, if he was honest.

He thinks about reading it to Brian, and wonders if sharing it would lessen it any. Would make it any less true, less personal. If actually speaking the words would somehow diminish how it makes him feel.

He doesn’t know, just remembers how he felt writing those words. He’s never really written anything before, not like this, and it makes his cheeks hot and he smiles a little when he reads it back to himself. It makes him hard and he touches himself when reading it, thinks of those words and how true they are.

He pulls the folded piece of paper from it’s hiding place and reads it again, his lips soundlessly moving with every word, his fingers creeping down beneath the band of his underwear. He decides to keep it to himself for now. Decides these words are better just for him.

For now.