phil. a fragile peace has been established in my mind. for now, i have regained my balance. dan now shows up at my house every morning, perched on my front porch, tapping out stories while he waited for me to come out.

in the mornings, dan smelled like coffee and soft vanilla and tired nights.

in the mornings, dans words were full of commas and blurry thoughts, and as we walked, he would wake up with the sunrise.

i would link my arm with his, not because i needed to be guided, but because i wanted to know he was there.

his voice would rise and fall like soft notes on the piano, and i let him paint the insides of my head with all the colors of his voice.

at school, we parted ways and the black would creep back in, but only for a little, because then it would be lunch, which was filled with stories told in pale yellows and soft pinks and the sizzling sound of the carbonation in his can of diet coke.

i had become much too attached, much too comfortable, and it felt like my feet were dangling off the edge of a cliff, but i didn't let myself think about that, let myself ignore the flashing red lights in my head that warned me to stop, go back. it was too hard to wear my mask of anger and indifference when dan was there, because the sound of his voice put me under his spell, wove blankets around me until i wanted nothing more than to wrap myself in his words and drift away.

i was terrified my boring life would create a rift, a hole in the conversation where i was supposed to contribute, but dan was so full of words that the hole never formed.

eventually, i started asking.

when we'd walk home, i'd ask him about the trees, the sky, the color of his shoes, what the group of chatty old ladies who passed us looked like.

never once, not even in the beginning, did he he question this. he just described them to me, like it was as natural as breathing.

"show me," i'd say, and he would.

at night, when he was far away and i was trapped inside the four walls of my room, i'd lie in my bed and remember the color of his words.

at night, when i slept, i started to dream of what he showed me.

but the picture i longed to see the most was the only one i couldn't get.

sometimes, when we sat in a quiet corner of the library, or on a bench at the park, i would ask him to show me him.

dan could paint everything but himself.

he would shift, cough, start.

his words were full of question marks and stopped and started like a bumpy car ride.

they were awkward and short and the color grey.

they left me with nothing, other than a skeleton, waiting to be draped with its skin.

his eyes were brown, and his hair. he was shorter than me. too skinny, so that his clothes never fit him right. hair like mine, but curly. i didn't know what curly looked like, and he couldn't tell me.

i wanted nothing more than to know what he looked like, and he wanted nothing more than to show me, but every time i asked, and every time he tried, he couldn't get anything more than a silhouette out.

so, using the words i'd tucked away, i tried painting my own picture.

dan was the color purple, purple like the sunsets he'd paint when we lay on the grass and let the night roll over us. dan was shaky and soft like the afternoon sun that kissed our cheeks. when he was anxious, he was tapping fingers and the sound of raindrops hitting pavement. he was curious eyes and restless hands and the smell of vanilla.

it wasn't the whole picture i wanted, but it was my picture, and i draped it over the silhouette of his, hoping one day he'll see himself the way i hear him, and i'll hear the rest of the colors to finish my picture.