Goo

"I love David Lynch." That was the first thing we allowed each other to say. We didn't want to throw the phrase around. We agreed to resist saying the simple three word phrase of infamy. We talked on the phone everyday, for hours. I was 15, and had been messaged by Matt after he read my poems and stories in an "ezine" that I had uploaded into a "zine forum" on AOL SPIN online. My zine was called either "Oddball" or "Peculiar." I can't remember which.
Matt introduced me to Jack Kerouac. We read the poems that we wrote back and forth to each other; his poems were abstract, symbolic, and laden with pop culture figures, and possessed a rhythm I envied, and my poems were always more sincere and heartfelt. 2 hours at a time talking about the cure, and sex. We were always discussing our sexual habits although neither of us had ever seen one another, being burgeoning horny adolescents. We were dependable voices on the other end of the line.
"I love David Lynch" transformed into "Goo"(a la Sonic Youth, no connection to any form of baby talk. We were mixing our love of pop culture with the affection we felt in conversation). The phrase was shortened for ease, and "Goo" had a better punch to the tongue. Our previous phrase of affection was too cumbersome, and ridiculous to say. I don't remember when it happened, but one day it hit and there was no more need for code words anymore. It was the first time I heard the phrase "I love you" from a boy. I think I've heard it from 5 boys, and I can only count 2 circumstances where I felt it has mattered in retrospect. My long telephone conversations with Matt are definitely one of the two.