the only moment we were alone

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I get to watch you sleep, I realize, ever wondering how much of you do I really know, how much of you remains a secret, your doors and locks – puzzles I am not supposed to solve. I am alone…with you. There is no sound or wind even, just a faint sliver of moonlight filtering through curtains, on your skin as if vaporizing upon contact. Now, it’s just us, occupying the same space in time. Now, the world drifts away into the night, diminishing into a mere echo of a story – untold, phantom whispers bouncing back and forth on the walls of the universe. I develop a heightened sense of awareness, of shadows leaving marks on the walls, of the fact that we are breathing the same air, of the stretch of bed sheet that separates us like an ocean, too treacherous for anyone to cross. I memorize your curves, your edges, your eclipses underneath the sheets; every ripple, locks of hair beautifully falling across your face sending me into a bittersweet reverie of how beautiful you already are from this distance that stretched out like the heavens, of how in this only moment we are alone, I ache for your heartbeats, hoping that somewhere, between a lub and a dub, a gap would open, just enough for me to walk through and be truly yours.

that moment when we danced in silence

AND THEN WE DANCED, more like swayed. Left and right we went, in a rhythm only us knew. No words dared to escape our lips, perhaps out of fear for their true meaning to diminish the moment they decide to take the form of sounds. And so, we continued to sway, minds blank, hearts full.

And then I saw it. In between beats and breaths drawn, frozen by the creeping time passing silently underneath us, lapping on our feet buried in the sand and water. It took the shape of your eyes, that shape I knew so well, the shape I trace with my finger on the sheets when I lie in bed, or in the air, unconsciously, like how a man forgets to breathe, but still does so. You blinked, and my heart stopped, only to beat again.