You wouldn't know it, but I think you're achingly beautiful

Sometimes when I look at you I cry inside, and I can't help but smile at the fact that you don't, and probably never will realize how beautiful I think you are. Not in physical appearance, though I guess you've got that covered too..

You've got these amazing dreams, these plans these goals you'll never be able to achieve them, not even a small portion of the huge swelling mass of thought'y matter in your head. All I can think is that we're all quite lucky it's somewhat contained. It's like.. I want to be that way, I want to feel how you feel, dream like you.. I want that star-locked gaze, I just want to be able to believe that you're right, that such things are possible.

On the other hand.. I can tell that part of me never wants to be like that, because it seems so far away from reality sometimes. Though, if I were to really consider it, I'd realize that not a whole lot in my world seems too entirely real any way..

I have huge conflicts in my mind, I can't distinguish reality from dream, from whatever else, because I don't think I want to believe what I do of reality. Perhaps I even want my reality to be something else entirely..

I don't know, it's kind of like this tumbling seething vortex of utter confusion, but the best kind, the kind that is so much more comforting than "real" things. After all, reality might not even exist, at least not any one reality. There are far too many completely different people in the world, with varying thought patterns, crazy ideas that others couldn't comprehend in their wildest dreams..

I just don't think all of this content can fit into a single truth.

Crush.
One word, and it pretty much ruled my life from eighth grade on to where I am now. Well, crushes and the computer...

I would always take crap from the popular kids in school, and I would never really resist, but instead, just kind of go Martin Luther King-style (you know, curl up and let them do whatever)... I was always easily twice the size of the children that would torment me. I never tried to start a fight; it went against my belief system to intentionally hurt another person. The other boys, the ones that would throw punches, you'd see them with girls hanging off their arms, and you'd know that, even at the age of, like, 13 or 14, they're getting some.
But I never fought back, never tried to risk sitting, bored as hell, in the school's office for a day while the other child is revered among his peers for finally making me snap. (It happened once. It's not fun.)

One day, I was sitting in the gym, where we are forcefully required to 'mingle' with people for twenty minutes before getting twenty minutes to procure a lunch and wolf it down.
I had my GBC with me (Game Boy Color), as it was the only way I knew of to pass the time when I was 'between books'. I had originally gotten the 'Boy for the Pokemon game about two years previously, but ditched the Poke cartridge for Zelda DX. It's a pretty kickass game, and I was inside the seventh dungeon-cave. I rarely save, especially when I am in dungeons, because saving radically changes your location. It'll either reset you to the last building you entered, or throw you to the start of the cave. So it was a while since I last saved. I was doing well, though, and didn't worry about a thing.
Then, David came.
Now, some things are not exactly good to see. At the top of that list is a pool of molten steel coming towards you... next on that list would be David. He is/was always looking to start a fight, and I was in no mood to oblige, especially since I had finally obtained 999 rupees.
David starts walking... he goes up the bleachers, walks straight towards me. He puts his hand over the screen, and then, as he lifts it, flips the power switch to the "Off" position. I am thoroughly pissed.
I go up the bleachers, to the top, where David and friends are laughing about what he just did. I tap David on the shoulder, and, as he turns around, land a fist into the side of his face. He tries to return in kind, but I duck it. About that time, the Gestapo lunch guards that watch us decide that it's "time to break it up". I think that they might have done better to start a pool while the fight was going, but it was their descision, so the lead yells at both of us to "COME DOWN HERE!" from the top of the bleachers. I casually walk down, trying to not tremble or cry. Focusing on rage building inside of me because of the ineptitude of the school's discipline program helped tremendously. I stop to grab my stuff. David grins at the crowd of people watching us, and the Man marches us down to the 'detention hall'. (that's what I call it; I'm not sure what the school calls it.)
I turn as I am about to leave the gym, and I make eye contact with one girl. The shy kind -- the kind that you never really know anything about, that invites you to make up stories about their past. She looks at me, and I think I see a glint in her eyes. Either that, or the overhead, twenty-foot-long, cancer-causing fluorescent lights are blinding her. I'm not sure, but I hope that it's the former. I smile at her as I'm taken away, lead to the hall.
I tried for the rest of the year to get close to her, but I went about it awkwardly, as I had no experience in the matter. (Still don't.)

If there was one thing I could have said to her, either in the gym that day, or at any time since, it would be "I think you're achingly beautiful." Both in mind, and in body.

Well ... I think you do know it.

Scarily, I think we both know it, but there's really nothing to do about it.

It's strange. You're probably one of my three closest friends here, definately the one that I connect with on more things than anyone else. I know how impossible a relationship between us would be - how it would very likely sour our friendship, how all of our other friends would disapprove, how is just a bad idea.

It's been a while since I realized how beautiful you are. How, when you tilt your head to read something on the screen, your face is positioned so that you look like a sculpture. How your little black geek glasses and "punk ethic" are some of the most beautiful things about you.

I always think I'm over it, that my reason has finally caught up with me. And, in a way, it has. I know that I will never do anything about this.

However, I also can't seem to completely rid myself of it. Sometimes, when I'm hanging out with everyone, I'll look at you laughing at some stupid joke, and my heart hurts.

Eternal crush, maybe ... what can I do?

You wouldn't know it, but I think you're achingly beautiful.

Not that I haven't told you. I say it under the confines of my husky breath, not letting the thought coerce itself into a realized sentence. Then I try again, just sitting with you, right next to you, feeling little wisps of feathery hair brush up against my shoulder. I'm not even looking at you, but I know you are giving me that grin, that charming, little boy sort of smile that sends my mind into oblivion and my nether regions into overdrive. Certainly you will never know the effects of that smile. It was made to haunt me, to keep me awake in my most extravagant dreams.

You've even formulated little answers to give me once I try the phrase on you again. It's almost like you are distinctly uncomfortable with the way you wear your skin, your face, your lips. Sighing, I listen, knowing that you, for some reason, will always fail to see the truth of your beauty.

"I'm not beautiful... don't say things like that. " If that came out of the mouth of anyone else, it would sound manipulative, a coy plea for my obsequiety. On you, the words express your being. You do think you are ugly.

"You, too." Yet we both know that's a lie. For all of my subtle charm and flings with style, we both know that my supposed attractiveness is nothing but a goddamned lie, that no cologne I wear or clothes I comport myself to will ever give myself the languid, almost ethereal fluidity that is your body.

But the worse response of all? Silence. It cuts through my very skin to study the vacancy in your black eyes, without even a hollow reassurance to know that you just heard anything that just escaped out of my mouth. It makes me feel so opaque, like you can see right through me, sense the coagulation of love and lust that I express to you just from the tone of my voice. And that you hate me for it.

So, I've made a resolution. I won't say it to you, again. I'll supress the urge to utter it when we are sitting on the grass, windy, shades of cloud covering your face and blades of sunlight cutting through the sky, kissing the angular and studied sinews of your skin. I'll show restraint when I see you dressed up, doing justice to the soft, subtly tailored clothing like a model never could. And I won't even mutter it under my breath, knowing that somehow just saying it will violate your esteem in no uncertain way. So, I will remember it, one last time...trying to assure myself that maybe it is your shy nature that lends you such uncomparable grace.

And it's true. Because even though I say it, the words are never going to percolate from your ears and down to your soul, where it matters. And that's a damned shame, lover. A goddamned shame. But yet another reason why I love you, and the devil may care if it means I must add another sin to my laundry list of self-destructing vices.

And so ends this little confession of mine... but I must say it to you, again.. hoping that somehow you will understand my message that is a prayerful bird in flight..

You wouldn't know it, but I think you're achingly beautiful.

This is fictional little confession, by the way. Actually, it's more of a pastiche of the experiences of my friends and I, but it's fiction nonetheless. So don't get any ideas!

The most beautiful people are those are not so in a conventional way.

They are those who, although you would never have called them plain, you would never have looked at them and thought that they were pretty.

But then time passes, you spend more time in each others company. Not because you fancy each other, not because you have a crush on each other, at least not one that either of you have admitted to yourselves. You spend time with each other simply because thats the way it happens. You sit together every night and watch the Simpsons. You lie there on each others beds, in each others rooms. Talking, just talking. Ideas come out and combine.

One day it starts to happen. Seeing each other becomes the high point of the day. You think you have a crush on someone else though.

You dance togeather. Close. When you dance you hold each other. But not as you would hold a friend. Its strange, you never dance with the one you think you have a crush on. Your cheeks are next to each other. There is a part of you that knows that, if you wanted to, you could kiss each other. But you don't. You are in the moment. Your proximity is enough.

Slowly it dawns apon you. Somehow you've started holding hands. First in private, while you are watching TV in each others rooms. For some reason everyone else who would normally watch with you have stopped coming. They seem to know that it is a time just for the two of you. One day, while sitting side-by-side on the bed, your fingers brushed past each other. And stopped. And slipped into each others hands. You hold on and don't let go. Once you start holding hands you feel like you are connected at all times.

Then it happens. You are out together, celebrating a birthday. You are both drinking, but not drunk, just happy. You are dancing. There is a whisper in your ear "you two are right for each other, get together, look after each other". You look up and over the crowd. Your wispered words are right. The world changes. You know your feelings.

You kiss and it is right.
You hold each other and it is right.
You look into each others eyes and it is right

You wish it were to be forever.

Maybe one day it will be.

This is a beauty that doesn't die.

I look at you, I desire you.

I always will.

In the beginning, I couldn't tell you. Too shy, too afraid. I didn't know how to approach you -- I would make small talk, rarely attempting anything meaningful. Your presence froze time. In our short-lived moments together, it was just me and you.

You later took the next step and invited me out, something I had been unable to do. It was that night at the dance that I first conveyed your beauty to you. You were by far the most beautiful; I told you, and you blushed. We sat, we talked, we finally danced. I will never forget that night.

Our time together has been the best of my life. Nearly a year I've been privileged to spend with you; holding your hand, sitting close by, opening your door. I've tried to tell you what I see, but you don't see it. Won't see it. Ever since that night, I've tried to recapture the look on your face, the shy reaction, the thoughts that must have been going on in your head. I think I have succeeded a few times, but I can't know for sure. You've hurt me, unknowingly remarking to my compliments in a manner only I saw as harsh. You didn't mean it. I forgive you.

I've tried to tell you so many ways. Through my unceasingly loyal actions, my manners, my caring, my love. But I want to tell you, I want to speak the words softly to you, I want you to blush once again. But you don't. I've tried showering you in affection, only to be hurt. I've tried being more sparse in my comments and saying them just when necessary, only to still be hurt. I've tried taking away my expressions of affection completely, resigned to being hurt.

You are better about it today than you were six months ago, but I'm afraid, as I was a year ago. I've never completely stopped being nervous around you, and you know why. After all of our great time together, you still freeze time, it's still just me and you. I want to tell you, but I'm afraid you won't listen: you are, in every possible way, achingly beautiful.