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(Photos by dollygasm.)

We know each other well, and I’ve heard a lot of your secrets, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful for that. The problem is that deep honesty isn’t enough; even total honesty wouldn’t be enough. Everything you decide to tell me only stokes this hunger for more of who you are.

I want to know more than just the pretty parts of you, is the problem–and they are such pretty parts. But I want to know how you sweat and itch and bleed and get sick, how your eyes look with a fever. I don’t want you to cry, not really, but if you do I want to be there. I want to see the places where you hurt yourself.

I wish I could feel every nerve in your body when you stand or stretch or ache or masturbate; I wish I could know exactly what you felt when I touched the back of your neck. I want to know where you get dry skin and which patch you missed, shaving your legs. I want to know every permutation of your smile lines and watch you pluck gray hairs or stray eyebrows. I want to catch you biting your fingertip to the quick.

I want to know who you were five years ago, and ten, and fifteen. I want the boring data, all your school papers and instant messages and emails to friends and lovers and, fuck, people you were trying to get to hire you. I want to see you gain weight and drop it, chop your hair off and grow it out. I want to have been there when you didn’t feel comfortable in your own skin. I want to watch you get old. I want to watch you grow into who you are.

I want to know which questions you won’t ask and which you won’t answer. I want to know what you dislike, and what you’re ashamed of hating. I want the things that make you proud, and whatever it is that embarrasses you. I want your moments of genius. I want your mistakes. I want every feeling and impulse. I want every single word you think.

If anything about this is unflattering, it’s unflattering to me: this borders on obsession, at best, and it’s not something I’m proud of. But when my control slips and I let on about how hungry I am, you always tell me time that you get it. It intrigues you. And I think that maybe we’re even, and just as much as I want to know you, you want to be known.

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