what we find here.

sometimes seeing a picture of someone you love is enough to bring tears to your eyes.

a lot of you are like that.

i've been very emotional lately, and i'm not being very good at seeing any of you.

late at night when i can't sleep, the things in my head are unreal - movies i've watched in the past, books i've loved, or remnants of the elaborate fantasies i've forever been so good at creating.

cera begged me to sleep in her bed, put her arm around me and breathed evenly. she finished my sentences and brought me the food i was craving without asking. she left me notes in song lyrics - it's friday, i'm in love (with you). she came to the phone every time i called crying, calmed me down. she influenced everything i did. she made me strong, and brave, made me feel perfect. she made me chicken soup, wore wallpaper pants, entertained my insecurities.

niqke picked me up out of the snow and brushed off my skirt, glared at my high heels and said, 'but you're my lindsay.' she rubbed her lips raw, putting lipstick prints on a piece of paper, to prove she thought i was beautiful. she listened to all my secrets and said, 'i love you anyway.' encouragement, fortification, of everything about me, even the things i thought weren't good enough. that's what niqke did. she cried with me at the airport, let me hang on to her when i had to leave.

laura listened patiently, over and over again, to fifteen months of self imposed heartbreak. she held my hand while we ran around in warm rain and sunshine, and she wrote poems on me. she encouraged me by example, by being one of the strongest women i've ever met. i sprained her ankle and still she loved me.

sean held my hand on the dark streets of cincinnati, while i limped along sad and broken. he looked at me and said, 'everything is so funny and so sad today.' (i can't explain it, that moment irrevokably burned into me.) i traumatized him by wrecking my car with him in it, and he spent the rest of the day taking care of me. he hugged me tighter and tighter, made me laugh, made me feel beautiful.

oliver made me howl with laughter, made me hurt with it. he trapped me in his bed and told me he'd be the happiest man in the world if i woke up the next day with a penis. he took me to prom and sang me beautiful songs, forgave me for red lipstick on his white shirt collar, and took care of me during all my panic attacks. he let me use him to make boys jealous.

brad made me laugh, made me feel comfortable at a time when i didn't fit in my own skin. michelle took on the responsibility of being my crutch, my only crutch, and never complained once. she has never judged me, never once, so solid. lindsay took me to california, she yelled at me over and over until i started to believe i was beautiful again. scott hugged me until i thought i would break, he tried so hard to fix me, to make me whole.

there are too many of you, too many ways in which you've changed me for the best. i haven't got the strength or the memory or the words to name you all, to tell everything you did and still do that make this reality more than bearable.

this is what i have: on those long nights, when i see my life in anamorphic widescreen, i know no-one in the world could make up stories this perfect.