He's barely a legal piece of meat. He's hardly an adult. He's immature to the point where you find it hard to be around him unless the lights are hit. He's also every little bit of life that you just can't let go of. You grit your teeth each time you tell him, with your dirty fingernails digging into his neck. All he does is laugh, but you can feel his pulse quicken. You often wonder why he's the crystallized white line to your nasal cavities.


It could be his obsession with Fight Club and Brad Pitt. The posters of Brad's chiseled body, that ruggedness you certainly don't have must do something for him, you tell yourself. It could be his nicotine musk that is so apart of his natural scent, it's possible he was smoking in the womb. (Medically impossible, but you tell yourself that everything about Adam is medically impossible.)


He's not careful, and he's clumsy. His jeans are never ripped because that type is just so high in demand. His jeans are always ripped because there is a nail that sticks out of his doorway, and he hasn't bothered to cover or fix it. His fingers are never not twitching, because he's either dropping his cigarette or lighting it up to share with you. You find that the circles under his eyes are impossible for somebody his age, his youthful tenderness. Adam is impossible.


Except for when he's sweating, breathing heavily between your itchy, half cotton, half polyester blankets. Only then is Adam a completely possible human being. With his disgusting, tattered flannel, open and only adding to sensation you find that it isn't so ugly. It's not something you can't bring yourself to look at. Because the contrast between his unmarked skin, pale and stretched over his bones and the blacks, reds and grays of the shirt are breathtaking, even if you never tell him so. His hair - Adam's hair is grainy, and dog-like all on its own. You notice that when you get him alone for too long, it becomes soft, the kind of hair you want to run your fingers through until it doesn't feel like hair anymore. You like pulling it. You like the way he bares his teeth, as if he's in pain when you knot your fingers in it. He never complains about it. He doesn't tell you to stop because it hurts. Adam doesn't ask you to be careful, he's only a boy. He just grabs your forearm, his jelly bracelets glittering in the half light of your attic bedroom and he says, "Harder."


That's the thing about Adam - he could be every little bit of life that you can't let go of, just by being him. It could be his big front teeth, bleached and clean. It could be his streaked blue, pink, red hair that first caught your eye in a sea of other kids with blue, pink, red hair. It could be his stale sense of humor - Adam laughs at nothing unless you do. It’s his age range - he still has skinned knees. It's possible, you think, that it could be the way Adam talks - long live Long Island.


On mornings when you wake up and you find yourself still tangled in your sheets and Adam's bony wrists; he'll say to you, "In the light, your shoulders don't look as tense." He'll sigh, tired like he didn't want to be awake, but forced his eyelids open to watch you sleep, and he'll add, "In the dark, they do."


To Adam, you're the elder, the veteran of life, love, music, sex, and words. The patron saint of a scene so dead. You're not really sure why you are that to him. You'd given up the band thing before the clock told you it was a good time to. To Adam, you're a Morrissey knock-off. There are times when he's in your room before you are, and he's got your ancient headphones around his stringy head of hair, and he'll mouth the words you can't tell him you wish you'd written.


You're a fucking mess of part-time jobs, giving guitar lessons, writing secrets and keeping them under your bed. (It's a heightened experience when he's digging around for condoms and might stumble across your books.) Adam might be hopelessly head over heels for you, anyway.


Because, you think that one day - if the circumstances don't change - Adam will become you.


Adam writes on anything that has a clean surface. His favorite place to scribble with his half-empty Sharpie is your wrist. The word he writes is forever, and it's still faded on your skin after showers and showers when he writes it again. You never wanted a tattoo, but Adam never cared. "There are . . . things that you can't let go of. Forever reminds you of that," Adam tells you, each time he writes out the last 'r'. He always tells you that. There's an inkling feeling pressed against the place he holds - always has been - that he means him.  The certain thing you can't let go of is Adam.


You're sure that's why you don't.