to boys who are barely friends

books are better than movies but movies are better than real life, because at least then i can imagine a timeline where you and i have fairytale love. you keep me so weightless i hardly feel the tug of reality til it comes crashing down on me; i’ll always trip gracelessly into like with you, into ugly laughs and the smell of grass and mosquito bites and bedroom floors and teenage dreams in the backs of hot cars. in the sigh between summer and fall i find myself infatuated with you and the way you tell me things about myself, things i never understood til you spoke them into existence, nearly enough to forget that i’m just hard to love. in my head i give you a different name and listen to you breathe his like i always do; i can pretend we’re different, that we ever could be. i think it was us, for a while. but a while is never forever.