//strangers, friends, best friends, lovers, strangers.//

love is a circle.

michael knows that better than anyone, because he has experienced the full circle, the beauty and the horror and the pain of it. 

he remembers when they were strangers, when he first saw him across the room and thought to himself, yeah, I'd like to get to know him, and when he was just a boy who sat behind him in math class who was the smartest kid in class.

and michael remembers when they were friends, people who hung out together occasionally and saw movies together and played video games with each other and when they laughed together at their teacher's stupidity.

michael remembers when they were best friends, when they talked until two in the morning and when they played their guitars together because they bonded over their love of music and when they did everything together.

michael remembers when they were lovers best. He remembers thinking that he had the prettiest blue eyes he had ever seen and that he was the cutest boy he had ever seen, and how his lips felt pressed against his own, and how they felt on his forehead, his neck, his collarbones. michael remembers how he wrote him songs and cuddled and shared secret glances that meant I love you and how it felt when he would do something awkward and michael would smile at him because he was adorable and he remembers the night where they poured their love into each other, where they both lost something you can only lose once. 

michael remembers the night where he told him that it wasn't working out, that maybe he wasn't gay and michael remembers his heart breaking because oh god, did that mean he thought he was gross and michael remembers crying and he remembers him looking guilty and telling him not to cry, it's not punk rock which only made his heart crack a little more because that was proof that he knew him better than anyone. michael remembers him walking out and he remembers crying, lot of crying as he left him there alone and heartbroken, the only boy he had ever loved just gone.

and now they are strangers again, they have gone full circle and now they exchange glances in the hallway at school, pretending that nothing happened and now michael doesn't sit in front of him in math class anymore and they don't play their guitars together anymore, michael only plays sad, sad songs all alone and michael doesn't get to feel his lips on his own and everywhere else; and now they pretend to be strangers that just walk past each other in the hallway but michael can't pretend; every time he sees him his heart cracks a little more and he needs to cry but he can't because it's not punk rock and he hates the circle.

michael hates the circle of love because he went through it with a person he wanted to stay at lovers with and he can't help but cry himself to sleep every night because he misses him oh so much and michael remembers when they were lovers and it was beautiful and perfect just like him, and all michael can think about is how he used to whisper his name in the dead of night and how michael longs to whisper his nickname one more time just to hear him answer.

"Lukey."

"Mikey."

It was their always.