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Johnny is beautiful. But everyone knows that. It’s like saying ‘the sun is bright today’ or ‘don’t start a fight unless you need to kick someone’s ass’. It’s a universal truth; a message that passes through everyone’s subconscious, a commandment that we’re born knowing.
Johnny is a fire that I try to preserve. A fire that flickers timidly but burns through my skin when I touch and, like the acrid smell of a burning cigarette, I’m addicted. He’s a fire that glows in small but open laughs, and a fire that shrinks with every bruise that mars his pretty face, every bruise that escapes my eyes.
Johnny is a stream that I’m afraid of. He flows through my fingers and no matter how hard I grasp and cling, he always leaves me behind. A stream that steals my eyes, my ears, my taste, and my touch when I come close; a stream that leaves me disarmed. I welcome it every time. Vulnerability scares me. Johnny scares me. But being vulnerable with Johnny isn’t terrifying at all.
Johnny is the spring that I love. On his skin grows budding flowers, pink and blue and all vivid colors. His steps bring the west winds, breezes that sends chills down my being, and rustles the green leaves. He is a faint memory; the aroma of the flowers I can hardly remember, his position next to my right that he used to favor feels so far away, the melting snow that stays long but leaves too soon, his pretty wide eyes I try so hard to recreate, the softness of his brown-turned-blonde hair I can’t feel anymore, his blatant apprehensiveness that falls away the more I seek it out in the corners of my mind. His smile, I can remember. He didn’t smile often. Not the genuine one that only I see, the one that tugs at his cheeks and wrinkles the skin around his eyes, the one that makes me realize every time I think of it how much I want him back. How much I want need to see him again.
Johnny is the love I lost. Johnny is the innocence I never had but mourned for. Johnny is the light that I stopped trying to catch a glimpse of after a while. Johnny is the hand that I could’ve held but I was too late. Johnny is the kiss that I would have savored but disappeared before I could turn my head. Johnny is the countryside I would have grown old in, maybe with Ponyboy, and Steve, and Two-Bit, and Soda, and Darry.
Maybe with Johnny.
Johnny is the one I would choose over and over again, if time would allow it, if life ever gave me a choice, if dreams gave me a chance to catch up. If he ever asked. If I had asked.
So I chose.
I want to see how beautiful he is again, I want to feel his flame against mine, I want to catch his stream, I want to see the flowers grow on him, I want to look into his eyes, I want to remember his softness, I want to comfort his nervousness, I want to trace over the wounds, goddammit I want to ask him to choose me, I want to choose him, I want to grow old with him, I want to forget the if’s and had’s and never’s and do all of them now, now where I’ll protect him and keep him and be kept. I’ll be good, I swear, I won’t put myself in jail, I won’t steal, I can’t promise I’ll put away the grease but anything else, please, I’ll do it all.
I want to tell Johnny he’s beautiful, because I’m not sure he knows, even though everyone else does.