You & Me

by Tal Bauer

Landon dropped casual touches easily, and I hadn’t been touched, other than a handshake, for three years. Landon’s shoulder squeezes and knee brushes burned me like a brand. They were moments where, for a single second, I wasn’t alone in the world. I existed. I was a person, and another person’s warmth reached me.

The last thing I saw before I drove away was his smile. It stayed with me the whole way home.

We were a puzzle made of two pieces, and when we fit together, all the sharp edges of life seemed squared off, blunted.

You’re like color exploding in a black-and-white world.”

“You are the gradations of undiscovered colors in my soul. You are the inhale before my blank canvas, the moment before my pencil touches the page. You are the manifestation of my dreams. You are my intensity.”

Perfection. Passion. He consumed me, and I tried to consume him in turn. We kissed like our souls were burning.