Us, in a Nutshell or a Stupor

I can't be expected to keep track of time when I'm standing in three different places at once with you, you, and you. It's not something I resent or something I regret, this wave of confusion and loss of motion when confronted with two gray eyes and a shock of blond hair. You and you and you keep me constantly occupied, running in circles and chasing my tail until up is down and right is left and nowhere is everywhere. So I bide that time that I can't keep track of carefully, waiting for the madness to subside and every part of my body to become my own again.

You are the epitome of urgency, a poison surging through my bloodstream, catching whatever's yet to come in a butterfly net. I'm bound to you and bound to follow you blindly, eyelids shut tight over watery green eyes. I specify that perhaps I'm not what they say I am but your fingers find my lips and I'm silenced. I'll never be what they say I am and somehow, you see that. Dragging me through dusty underground tunnels and over breezy city rooftops, you keep me alive, keep me sane, keep me from thinking. Wearing a mask of concentrated excitement (one that's oddly accented by moonlight through trees), you string me up and pull me along, wrapping and twisting and I can't let go. The stars are catalysts, pushing the night forward, you racing to catch up and pass it. There's never been so much at stake.

Spending time with you is a waste of mine. I have no use for your words or your thoughts, if either were ever to appear in sentences longer than snowflakes. Worn armchairs

opposite each other and unblinking stares with crossed arms are your way of keeping me here. I should be capable of standing, walking, moving, but you've frozen me in place, space, time. A subtle poetry flows over your shoulders and into your hands, where you crush it diligently and leave the pieces to fall to the floor. You remind me that I always find someone to suffocate, break, kill; you remind me of myself. I could do it to you if I wanted to, make a mess of the whys and the hows and the stars and the clouds, without even trying or lifting a finger. Your skin glows white at times like these, did you know that? I bet mine does too.

I loathe you with a passion, with a force I didn't know I had until I met you (or you or you), a force strong enough to pull down the moon and roll it between my fingers. And then I'd flick it at you and it would hit you in the eye and maybe you'd close your eyelids for a minute, giving me a chance to breathe and move without you seeing. I hate it when you call me a "silly man," laughing and smiling and showing your teeth, those two rows of blocks of white that never bite your tongue. Because I'm not a man, I'm a boy, a silly boy, just like you. Aren't I? I am. They like us like this and I think you do too, my dark hair falling in my eyes and you glaring disdainfully, refusing to push it out again. As if it wasn't your hair as much as it is mine. Even fingertip-to-fingertip contact makes me shiver, and it shouldn't, it shouldn't because I abhor you. And you like that. Ironically, everything I've ever done, I've done for you, my selfishness always making way for yours. And it's you I'll ruin and you I'll smash and you I'll leave behind.

So when up is down and right is left and nowhere is everywhere, I'm all over the place with you and you and you, whom, when added together, obviously equal you. You specialize in Making it Better and I specialize in Making it Worse, both of which we keep for ourselves, saving it for a rainy day. This nose smells rain. A pair of idle hands would pluck the clouds from the sky and dispose of them like you dispose of you dispose of you, but my hands are all tied up keeping you and you and you at bay so I might have a moment's peace. Time hurries me and time worries me and time sends me into a flurry of raindrops. I can't decide which makes less sense, whether it's me or you or you or you or you or us or us or us. You think it's me.

Yes, yes so do I.