It has to come out. There is no other way.

Yesterday I returned from a brief holiday in the country and the first thing I wanted to do was to write an email to the man I currently pine for, who is unfortunately in a different country (damn this double life of mine!). As I tried to write a standard email (you know, sensible stuff like how my trip was, and what did you end up doing for new year's?) though, I found myself oddly stuck. It's happened before.

At a time like that you have to abandon the sensible stuff. Only a little sliver of me is actually sensible anyway, so it's not a big step for me. Just give in. Just write the thing you can feel spreading through your shoulders and oozing down your arms. The thing that your heart is determinedly pumping through your veins so that your hands grow hotter as it threatens to burst out through your fingertips. Just do it. Unleash it on your keyboard.

I love you I miss you I love you I miss you I love you I miss you so so so so much.

Ah, that's better.

Breathe a sigh of relief, but don't even bother thinking about stopping to start cleaning up the mess. You're not done yet.

The thing is I do miss him so so so much. I try hard to force something else to the front of my mind. Something normal, inocuous, boring even. Anything for a little relief from the intensity of the feeling that comes when he is not within my reach. I can't though. There is no suppressing the feeling. There is no putting it aside. It has to come out, every time.

I miss him to distraction. I can't focus. My eyes blur as I try to think of something to write that could pass as normal. As I settle on, "I miss you Stefan", the screen becomes clear again, and I've already begun typing the words before consciousness returns and I remember that that was the thing I was trying to avoid saying. Damn. I try again to think of something normal, and snow clouds the screen. My body is tricking me into saying what I really mean. It won't have it any other way. "It has to come out", it says.

I give in, and let my fingers bleed onto the keyboard.

I miss you Stefan. I miss you, I miss you miss you miss you miss you.

That's the whisper I constantly hear somewhere inside or around me. Maybe both.

I miss you with my whole body actually. It's like feeling hungry, but hungry all over, not just in my belly. My shoulders ache a little. My legs ache a little and so does my chest. My hands feel weak. I feel like every muscle and bone and organ is starving to see you, hear you and touch you. My ears ring with remembered music. "Tonight is made of all the space in empty lovers' arms", sings a voice in the distance. There is space in my arms tonight. My hands, so often vacant, feel horribly empty as my palms crawl in anticipation of the smooth back they want to press and cling to. My cheek, always bare, suddenly feels exposed and naked as it yearns for the hot, drumming chest it has rested upon so often. Everything is tense, nothing moves. "Where is the rest of me?", asks my body. "Don't tell me I'll be okay. I want my other half".

My head feels light lately, and sometimes I've been going deaf. I am strangely suspended in time and space. I am constantly, unconsciously waiting. Today I have become conscious of it again, and I know that the thing that my dull brain is waiting for is you. The more I am conscious of the source of this floating, waiting, slow-motion feeling, the harder it becomes to breathe. Why is that? Why does the body react so strongly to the brain's emotions? 'I miss you Stefan' is a thought; it has nothing to do with my lungs. But there's still no question that these tiny, constricted, shallow lungs are directly related to the constant whisper. I miss you Stefan... Now I'm trying to see you reading this. I wish I could see what you are doing, what you are wearing, the expression on your face, the weather outside, the light on your skin. The air I breathe feels thick and my lungs are a pair of tiny, worthless billows. I move in slow motion, as though I'm SCUBA diving again. I'm swimming towards that light on your skin, where the air is clearer. I'm still swimming. There are tears in my eyes.

My heart relaxes a little. The ache is easing. It feels relieved - it's all on the page. And now I send it. To myself.

After dinner, I write him an email. I tell him how my trip was.

Tomorrow he will tell me what he ended up doing for new years'.