amplifying the stillness we share,
your head cradled in my arm’s crook,
hairs slightly tickling with each breath.
This is when I’d usually leave,
gather clothes from the floor’s
pile that are tangled in all
the ways we just were together.
I would usually move like a thief
throughout the dark house,
noting how our possessions would
mesh together under one roof,
the transition would be so seamless.
The notion is just too faint, though,
a vague shape of something foreign
that breaks apart like smoke curling,
fleeing through a lone open window.
I only stop for a second after
silently closing the front door,
like I can hear you upstairs,
shifting around in your sleep
where my warmth has yet to become
a ghost in between a blanket and sheet.
I wanted to leave a note for you,
not words on a screen or a digital
snapshot framing only what
I want you to know or see.
I would’ve left something tangible,
some piece of me you could summon
and relive with a single touch,
I can’t tell you yet what I’d write,
what I’d confess and promise.
It would’ve been true,
I know at least that much.
This is when the streets
would be almost too quiet,
a self contained soundless vacuum
when the sky is about to pour.
When some weak gust of wind rises,
steadies for a nearing storm,
the cool air passes and lifts
the scent you left in my clothes.
Plucked flowers and red wine
and an earthy sweetness
I can never quite place,
it must be your specific essence,
the perfume of your yearning.
Something inside me would
simply tear apart then.
And I would begin to realize we
weren’t entangled by bones
or exhausted tendons,
we weren’t just joined planets.
If anything ,we were ligaments,
the thin tissue holding it all safe,
vulnerable without one another
in more ways than I understand.
I would eventually get home,
the rain falling soon after,
a sound like constant low static
drowning the signals from you
that were still reaching for me.
This is when I’d usually close my eyes
and replay the music we danced to,
the song you said was your favorite,
you couldn’t tell me why just yet.
But your eyes convinced me that
the notes took root deep inside
long before you and I met,
long before you gently squeezed
my hand as the chorus swelled.
The gesture was so faint at the time,
a vague message taking shape
when you leaned in to kiss me,
the transition was absolutely seamless.
Unable to let sleep claim me,
I would usually inhabit each
memory again and again,
where I left a part of myself
and not just the fragments that
I wanted you to know or see.
Where you pulled me into you
and the smallest details were
tendered from brief cues into
things I’d be unable to relinquish.
A sudden familiarity awakened in the new,
the way your hand slipped into mine,
tying together the very ends
of two entirely different worlds.
Something relentless and so restless
inside of me would simply crack before
ever having the chance to bloom near you.
Nothing seems to stir tonight, though,
this amplified stillness tellls me
exactly what I need to know,
exactly why I should stay.
I can’t tell you what I’ll say
when we wake up together.
Whatever I tell you will be true,
I know at least that much.
