[16 August 2019]
How long will the words we spoke keep us together? The weight of you
presses against my chest, my side, leaving an impression
on me I can’t easily erase. Days stack up like credit card receipts or grains of rice,
growing into something substantial, but we ate twice as
many for dinner last night. I kiss your shoulder,
your ear, your hair, your back, your feet
hover between the platform and the train, playing snowdrift
against yourself, counting the seconds before you lose faith
in the future being different than the present save
with less freedom. I smell you still, sandalwood and
coffee beans etched into the contours of my chest
and stomach and collarbone and my black jeans
tossed in the corner on top of your yellow sweater or
maroon button-up. I count the things I never
saw. The dark hairs on the back of your hand and the dark hairs on the
back of your neck. Your big, smooth palm in my rough, small one. Fishing
nets on the Jordan. You’ve only just begun to put words
to it. Blood flows and pools. You breathe once, a heavy breath, a sigh weighed
down by peanut butter and whiskey and an intangible ache
to be free. I know how this ends, even if you don’t. And so you turn to
face me, our noses touch, our eyes searching, and we laugh like schoolboys
peering through one-way glass, nervously,
each slowly finding a stranger in the other’s face.
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