4:21amKeith
what is a bit anyways

4:21amTehlor
hmm
I think it's subjective

4:22amKeith
exxxxxsacsiclaly

4:22amTehlor
I just tried to say that out loud

4:22amKeith
sounds like a popcicle?

4:22amTehlor
lol

4:22amKeith
popsicle?

4:22amTehlor
it kind of does

4:23amKeith
i need to go to bed lol
ur gonna keep me up too long

4:23amTehlor
ex - sac - sic - lal - y

4:23amKeith
lol
lolly

4:23amTehlor
ex - sack - sick - lolly
you did it didn't you?

4:24amKeith
LOL
LMAO

4:25amTehlor
but if you didn't really say it out loud, you should
it's fin
fun

4:25amKeith
i have fins

4:25amTehlor
floppy fish

4:25amKeith
im a fish
flooper

4:26amTehlor
you're two fish

4:26amKeith
really? why

4:26amTehlor
because you're a pisces
?

4:26amKeith
oh thats right
i forgot
i wonder what that means

4:26amTehlor
I could go into it
but I probably won't
haha

4:26amKeith
tell me about myself tehlor

4:27amTehlor
maybe I will sometime

4:27amKeith
ok
but now im going to bed
me tired

4:27amTehlor
me too
the sprinklers just came on
that's how I know it's late

4:28amKeith
go get naked and run though them

4:28amTehlor
I think that's probably exactly what I'll do

4:28amKeith
im sure you will
because you love life that much

4:28amTehlor
hey, I love life

4:29amKeith
hey hey
hey
he
ay

4:29amTehlor
h
a
y

4:29amKeith
a
way

4:29amTehlor
gay

4:29amKeith
by the bay?
neh

4:29amTehlor
in a sleigh?

4:30amKeith
have a good day

4:30amTehlor
okay

4:30amKeith
lay

4:30amTehlor
stay?

4:30amKeith
maybay

4:31amTehlor
gray-vay?

4:31amKeith
and biscutsay

4:31amTehlor
well if we can just add -ay to everything it's kind of pointless...ay

4:31amKeith
neh

4:31amTehlor
play?

4:32amKeith
k

were just clay
molding into the day
thats ok

4:32amTehlor
is that a haiku?

4:33amKeith
are you?
a haiku?

4:33amTehlor
it's true

4:33amKeith
something new
to undo

4:33amTehlor
I'm blue

4:33amKeith
im green

4:34amTehlor
and mean

4:34amKeith
and kinda keen

4:34amTehlor
sort of lean
you're a machine

4:34amKeith
just a bit lean

4:35amTehlor
kind of a queen

4:35amKeith
lets eat a spleen

4:35amTehlor
I'm keen on a lean spleen
with a bean?

4:36amKeith
only if its green

4:36amTehlor
green bean

4:36amKeith
grEEN BEANS!!!!

4:36amTehlor
lean spleens and green beans

4:36amKeith
hey girl can you say green beans
fuck i need to go to bed
gnight babe

4:37amTehlor
'night
sleep good

Sometimes life is just a little too good to be allowed. This hour long conversation followed a half-hour long phone conversation and everything is... just... fuckingamazing. Except the whole being far away thing. That sucks. A whole lot. But even that can't really put much of a damper on the whole feeling of... like... irrepressible bubbly happiness.

I love you, Keith Schafer. I love you so much it's sort of overwhelming at times. Even after everything that has happened, after all the intensity and the declarations and the ridiculousness of it all...

The fact that you called me 'babe' literally made me giggle for like 10 minutes. In a room alone. At 5 am.

I will see you in 4 days.

I literally don't know if I can wait that long.

dear keith,

I'm sorry.

I'm having an incredibly difficult time with this, and I really need you right now. I need you to wrap me up in your arms and squeeze me until I can barely breathe and tell me that you'll always love me this much and... just make me sure. make me feel like you always manage to when I'm feeling all lost and out of control.

I feel lost and out of control right now.

like you're letting yourself forget me. forget everything that happened. forget that just for a minute, you let yourself love me. let yourself cry for me. let yourself kiss me and mean it for once. I feel like you're drifting away from the memories we made while all I'm doing is clinging to them like a life preserver.

I don't want to be here, I don't want to dilute my memories with this stupid landscape and the meaningless words of other people and the endless fucking hours of solitude. I don't want to share you with the hundreds of miles that separate us.

I've come to the obvious but painful conclusion that I'm either going to have to let go of those memories in order to have any chance of functioning normally... or hold onto them if I'm going to have any chance of coming back to find what we have intact. the two desires are nearly impossible to reconcile with one another.

it's so hard to think clearly when nearly every fiber of my brain is saturated with missing you. with trying not to cry every second. with avoiding the phone with my eyes because I don't want to check only to find that you haven't called.

I know the point was to keep our separate lives, to not let the distance break us... but I'm not sure I can do it. I'm not sure that I can hold onto you without it breaking me, and I know that now is a bad time to break...

I don't know what to do. I can't stop loving you. I can't stop missing you. I just... can't do anything.

I love you.

dear keith,

yesterday when you called I was more heartened by the sound of your voice than I could have imagined. you sounded normal, and I felt like my whole body was sighing in relief. we talked inconsequentially, bantering like always, but with enough cue words to make me sure you haven't forgotten.

of course you haven't.

sometimes I feel so paranoid, like the happiest part of my life is just slipping away in increments the longer I'm away. it's so hard to believe it's only been a few days. I want to see you more and more with every passing hour... but I think I'm doing okay?

today I didn't talk to you at all. trying not to worry about it too much. today I thought about you more than I have since I got here. I miss you, so much. I'm glad I can write these letters in a place where you'll never see them, although I sometimes feel like I'd even be allowed to say these things to you. that you wouldn't mind knowing just now much you've gotten to me.

I'm sometimes amazed at how it's possible to love you more and more with every passing day.

good lord, I miss you.

dear keith,

it's midnight on wednesday and I wish we were at crush playing free pool. I'd be getting you free drinks and you'd be smiling at me across the table while you put away all those drunk losers. maybe by now we'd be ready to go home, put on a movie, lay in bed together like a pretzel. being as close to you as possible was always more important to me than actually watching the movie... whatever it was.

tonight I wasn't going to call you but I sent you a text... "who is this?" you replied and when I said my name you never said anything back. I need to not worry about petty things like that. I need to spend less time trying to talk to you, thinking about you, wondering what you're doing and where you are... it's just torture.

it's so hard for me to be this far away because when I'm with you I can see every feeling - good or bad - on your face as soon as you recognize you're feeling it. with you so far from me it's hard to have any idea where your head is, what you're thinking, how you're feeling at this particular second... about me, about us, about life in general.

it's strange to me how important it's become to me to know those things.

I'm okay for the most part, you know... but it's still hard every second that I can't be right next to you. that I don't know when I'm going to see you again. that I can't even call you whenever I want to. I think most often about the look on your face when I noticed you were crying. the tears streaming down your face as you contemplated life without me. life alone. life without everything we'd built and the way it all seemed so effortless when we were together.

I still feel that way sometimes.

"do you think it'll feel like we're dying?" you asked me, all choked up with the tears you didn't bother to check. I guess it doesn't feel like I'm dying, but sometimes when it gets late and I'm cold and looking forward to another night spent in a big bed alone... it feels like a part of me is missing.

I don't know if it would help were I to visit you soon. I don't know if it's too late for that. I have to hope you haven't changed too much in the last couple days. that things can still be as fucking beautiful as they were when I was there with you. I have to hope with most of my available brainpower that you couldn't forget that fast. that things couldn't possibly have changed too much...

that things won't ever change that much.

that you miss me as much as I miss you.

not that that's even possible.

dear keith,

well it's not officially been 24 hours since the last time I saw you. somehow I feel like I should be moping around being all sad and stuff... but the truth is, I'm really okay. it almost scares me how easy it is for me to be away from you.

I don't think I've ever felt the way I felt those first few days, there's something about our connection that's just a little deeper and better than anything I've ever felt before, and I will cherish the memory of that for as long as it stays in my head.

something tells me it isn't ever gonna go away.

sleeping alone last night was a little hard, but not nearly as hard as I thought. everything about this has been so effortless so far... apparently not even leaving is exempt from that.

I miss you, of course, but not in the crippling way that I imagined I would. I'm feeling a little heartless right now actually. I hope you're doing okay. something tells me you are. I don't think I'll call you today.

I thought these letters were going to be all melodramatic, full of melancholy prose and imagery... I feel more like I'm writing a letter to my grandmother...

maybe it just hasn't set in? I don't know.

I love you. that hasn't changed.

dear keith,

it's my first night away from you and so far I have to say it hasn't been as awful as I'd imagined it to be. of course, I haven't tried to sleep yet.

I guess we'll see how that goes.

not much to say I guess considering I saw you 12 hours ago and talked to you on the phone even more recently. the sound of your voice was scary. you sounded normal again. "I can't really talk right now" you said, and I don't know why...

not to sound petty and jealous, but I could have sworn there was a girl's voice in the background. not that I didn't expect that to happen eventually, just that it's a little soon... don't you think?

anyway, not that it needs to be said, but I still love you just as much. maybe more. maybe it just hasn't set in yet that you're not where I am. here it's dark and quiet and I'm about to go to bed alone. I can't remember the last night I spent apart from you.

I guess I'm scared.

I guess I'm worried that you'll forget everything, or that I will. at this point I don't know what's more worrisome.

I miss you a whole bunch. I love you even more than that. it's hard for me not to make plans to come see you next weekend, but I know it's too soon. maybe it won't be by then.

either way I still completely belong to you for all intents and purposes. I hope that's okay with you.