I stil keep the shape of your lips with me- an involuntary token, healing slowly, perhaps because I keep reminiscing how it was brought to me. My name on your lips,your lips pressing mine, my thoughts racing as I try to discern the shades and colours mixing in your eyes. Standing side by side, I count the lines surrounding your eyes , reminding me that a man of twenty five was either born twenty years too early or is twenty years too old.You've got childhood tangled in your curly hair and you like to say your eyes are blue though they're a kind of sallow green. I like the cobwebs in the corner of your room , your uncomfortable bed and the immaculate pillows in contrast with the shabby ,worn blankets.You're the typical artist who doesn't write or paint or sing, who doesn't talk about art except when drunk.You like that my lips are always red and my hair long enough to become a tempting courtain. We're both addicted to beauty, young and shallow, pretending we're deep-those places we go to and people we talk to not because we like them or care for them , we're just attracted by their unbearable charm. The grey mornings following white nights , we spend in front of the bathroom mirror -our gaunt faces a prelude of our coming of age. We're not that terrible, really -we play pretend and pretend to play- play with the world around us and in the end we become the fools jest. Maybe we're not even shallow, it's just another game as not to tell eachother how we really feel. I think of you each night, living again a string of conversations and aimless wondering and real intimacy , beginning and ending with a kiss. That is all, c'est ne pas grave. No drugs and no debaucherie. Your lips pressing mine into voluntary submission. Newspaper stands receiving their first batch. Waiting for the first bus to take us home, yoiu'll go one way, I'll go another -except that night I slept in your uncomfortable bed then spent the morning counting the lines around your eyes while you were sleeping.