You're mine, Joshua Scott Chasez.

I didn't stake that claim selfishly; you told me so yourself. In words, in actions, with your romantic notions and poetic soul (don't deny it; oh, I might've cried the first time you sang to me, but if I recall correctly, you were the one who cried the first time we made love. Not had sex; this was the real deal. I am the master with the flowers and the candles and the champagne, and you are the master of licking said champagne from my navel and looking up at me with child-like eyes and breaking my heart with your beauty). You're my crazy sentimental fool, and I'd laugh at you if you didn't always take my breath away, but it's all okay, because I'm yours, too.

You say it every time you glance at me across the room; you own me. And not in that psychotic way where you beat me and carve your initials into my skin when we fuck or something. No... it's in that way that you can nail me with a gaze and I can't move, can't breathe, can't think, and you might as well have grabbed me by the balls or the throat or the heart I'm so immobile... this is why I can't look at you when I'm talking in interviews, you know that. You always look at me -- I see it when it gets televised later -- you always watch me with eyes that make me feel like every word I say holds your life in the balance, they're that important, when really all I'm talking about is our tour dates or some lie like I'm single (I would just love, one time, to say something like "well, actually, I'm frantically, addictively in love with JC -- in fact, he just gave me a blow job to calm my nerves before I came out here." I wonder what the headlines would be for that one. I wonder if they'd think I was just being sarcastic). And I know that stare is for me, ME and you never look at another soul that way and you're mine. I never look at you, though, when you're giving me that stare, because if I do I'll either cry or kiss you or both, and neither would be great for the cameras.

I see you grind your body on the stage, I see you in the clubs with all those girls who want you -- all those girls who're prettier than me (and really, I should be happy about that, shouldn't I, since I've fought so hard to get past everyone calling me the pretty one. Do the sideburns help? I feel silly growing them in, but I'll keep them for now 'cause you like them, Jace), and it's times like those when I just can't quite believe you're mine after all. It's so overwhelming, like right now, with you making eyes at me right here in the TV studio, narrowed beautiful silvery crinkly eyes and that damn smirk on your lips (that you keep licking, knowing I'm watching you do it, damn you) that says "we've got ten minutes when this interview is over -- meet me in the nearest isolated spot for a quickie" and even as I grin disinterestedly at an intern as I practically rip my mic pack from my body, you turn and face me as you back away, and I pray I make it to the bathroom or a supply closet or something before I tackle you to the ground in front of everyone. And when we emerge seven minutes later, the taste of you still on my lips and me on yours, Joey pulls me aside all jokingly and asks how I found the dessert, and, giving him what I know is a shit-eating grin, I tell him it was better than any popsicle I ever licked. And he laughs at my lewdness, as do I, but between you and me I spoke the God's honest truth.

I think about the way I love you when you fall into my arms late at night in a visit to my hotel room, sobbing because you've given and given so much of yourself and there's just nothing left to give, and yet somehow you find it in the depth of your soul just enough to give me a little bit of you every night. And you wonder how I can remain so detatched, so calm, and you don't even know, don't have the foggiest clue that you are my strength, that I make it through my days on the promise that I'll be there for you, because without you I would have nothing; I would simply, absolutely shrivel up and die inside and become the wallflower I once was. You don't know how I thank God every day that you're mine, how if I hadn't gotten that call five years ago, if I hadn't had a hunch, if my mom didn't trust my hunches so much (once, when I was in the fourth grade, I didn't want to go to school one day. Like, I cried and bawled and screamed and begged to stay home. And Mom insisted that if I wasn't sick I had to go... so I threw up on the front porch. Quite honestly. No tricks -- puked all over the place. Mom put me to bed, and that day the school bus rolled and two kids in my class died), if I hadn't met you... I dunno, I'd probably be dead. I once thought hanging was the way to go; homosexual isn't exactly a fun or popular thing to be in small-town Mississippi. If you think you need me, I need you times ten. Times a billion. Times infinity.

You know, I love it when I get so drunk that everything is funny and everyone's ass is begging me to touch it, and I ask perfect strangers to show me their tits (that bouncer that one time didn't appreciate my sense of humor much, did he? But you saved me from him, too, my hero!) and being naked sounds like a great idea, and you take me up to your room and strip me down and put me in bed and hold me until I fall asleep or pass out. And in the morning you just hand me my two Advils and spare me the lecture, and sometimes I wonder if you're just encouraging me like Chris says, but I'm glad you're mine then, too.

So even now, as we're getting on our different buses (fuck Johnny and his "you gotta be careful"'s and his worries that the fans would figure out we shared a bunk if we were on the same bus) and I scoop Dirk into my arms and curl up with him in my bunk (yeah, the way of my life is bestiality. But really, his body is the only warmth I get on these trips when it used to be you. And he never protests, never squirms away or bites, because I think he knows I need him, too), I'm trying to think of something I can do for you, because I always feel like I don't do enough; that since you saved me from myself and my life, I owe you some debt, and my love and my soul won't cut it. You're mine and it's all I need, but it's not enough that I'm yours; you deserve more, and I wish there was a lyric that wasn't played out, something I could quote you.... You know, there's a part from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets From the Portugese that goes:

And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee --in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine.

So it turns out that I'm a romantic, too. Whatever is in my poetic soul is all yours.

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