It's you. It's you all the time. It's you at 2 AM when I'm balancing on the tightrope between consciousness and slumber, it's you at 3PM when school just gets out and I rush to our place on the last bench to the right nearby the theater, it's you at 6PM while I'm staring down at my dinner, rearranging my peas or rice grains to look like your name. It's such a shame how you don't notice the extended glances I send you during class, and the sheepish smiles and flushes that follow when you catch me. I know I'm only a teenager with a thousand metaphors for this so-called "love", but it gives me a tingling sensation of pins and needles that replaces the numbness that used to linger beneath my skin in a way that only you could trigger. I know you don't feel the same because of the way you look at her. Maybe, just maybe, if I had her figure, or her hair, or her smile, or the cute freckles that resemble constellations as shown in her brown eyes. Maybe if I had her sense of humor, or her laugh, or her ability to carry on a conversation without any holes between my speech. I have no idea what love is, but the way you make me feel is exactly how warmth in a bitter cold winter feels, no matter how much I'm imagining that loving heat. But what if there's something greater buried beneath these useless metaphors and awkward first impressions? What if there's something more that chocolate waterfall hair, or stars littered across cheeks and irises? I'll learn eventually. Not this time. Not next time. Not the time after that. Hopefully, I learn not to fall in love with boys who don't love boys, like me. Maybe I'll learn not to fall in love with boys that like cute galaxy freckles and long hair. Not to fall in love with boys that like girls smaller than them with tiny waists. I'll learn, eventually. But until I learn, I'll binge on the little attention you give me now.

-The boy you don't look at twice.