I love the way you look when you step out of the bathroom, just after a shower. The water streams down your white skin and sparkles lightly on your cheeks, pure, crystal against your skin which is flushed from the heat. Your hair stands up in spikes and your blue eyes don’t look quite so icy- they mimic the steam, the sweat.

And I try not to remember that you shower to get rid of my smell, to get rid of the night.

And I try not to remember that after you shower, you leave.

Lance is there if I want him, he’s there for all of us, but he’s not the same. Lance is soft, his voice rumbling in his chest, tinged with Mississippi heat and rolling hills and horses, and he smells like lemons, grass, rain, earth.

You, you’re different- you’re hard and your voice grates in your throat and rings with the toughness of Detroit and the icy metal of a gun and you smell like the city, like cigarettes and match smoke and water.

“Josh…” you mumble, flinging the water from your cold eyes and your eyelashes clump together. “Josh, I have to…”

“Go.” I finish for you, rolling over, my back to you. “I know. I know the damn routine.” I don’t want to ask it, I don’t want to ask the question but I do every time. I want to be able to let you go, to just turn my back and let you walk away and never see you again. But I can’t. “When will I see you again?”

“Fuck. I don’t know. Sometime. It doesn’t really matter. It’s not like this is more than just a good fuck, something to do when there’s nothing else.”

Thank you. Thank you for that dose of reality. I really needed to hear that. “Yeah, whatever. Go. Bye.”

And you slam out of the room, without another word.

And I do the thing I always do when you leave- close my eyes because I can still see the imprint of your head on the pillow, cover my ears because I can still hear you walking away from me, stop breathing because I can still smell you in the air and taste you in my mouth.

And then I give up and cry. Like I always do.

When I wake up the bed is cold and empty and the sheets are rough against my skin and I can’t breathe, I can’t think. The air still smells of stale cigarettes and sweat and sex and your shirt is thrown in one corner of the room, crumpled and forgotten.

I feel lost, afraid, and the walls are white and staring. My heart races and I cover my eyes but the room presses in on me anyways, closing around me, dooming me.

And I’m so alone.

This happens a lot, I wake up in this empty hotel room- our room- and panic, feel so near death and almost cry because I’m so empty and so alone and so lost.

It’s you, I swear it’s you, because I never felt like this before. I’m shaken by the violence of my love for you, shaken to the fucking core.

You don’t know this, you’ll never know this, and you couldn’t possibly care less. I’m just a fuck, but even less than that, because you can’t gloat about me to your friends- I’m a release, I’m relaxation.

I thought I could change you, I thought I could make you someone who cared and someone who loved and someone who felt but that seems so far away in this room, on this day, on every day.

We meet and I feel charged, feel loved, wanted, and you leave and I feel used, left to drown in panic and self pity.

And it’s always the same, I look into your eyes, looking for love or appreciation or any kind of emotion but all I see is hatred, anger. And I wonder if that hatred is directed to me.

It’s only been six months. And I’m already this infatuated. I can’t help myself. I fall in love with every man or woman I sleep with. I just… do.

Nothing will ever come of this- nothing could ever come of this. Because I’m Joshua Chasez of *NSYNC.

And you’re Marshall Mathers the third, known to the world as Eminem.

I know this, so I do what I have to. In public I just give uncomfortable smiles when you’re mentioned. I avoid eye contact very carefully.

But it hurts.

I hope that one day you’ll know that every second hurts.

Do What You Have To
by Sarah McLachlan

what ravages of spirit
conjured this temptuous rage
created you a monster
broken by the rules of love
and fate has lead you through it
you do what you have to do
and fate has led you through it
you do what you have to do...
and I have the sense to recognize that
I don't know how to let you go
every moment marked
with apparitions of your soul
I'm ever swiftly moving
trying to escape this desire
the yearning to be near you
I do what I have to do
the yearning to be near you
I do what I have to do
but I have the sense to recognize
that I don't know how
to let you go
I don't know how
to let you go
a glowing ember
burning hot
burning slow
deep within I'm shaken by the violence
of existing for only you
I know I can't be with you
I do what I have to do
I know I can't be with you
I do what I have to do
and I have sense to recognize but
I don't know how to let you go
I don't know how to let you go
I don't know how to let you go

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