shelter

I HAVE ONLY ONE image of you left: You gazing out a car window, almost a shadow against the afternoon sun. Your gaze a firefly I could not catch, not yet. And my fingertips fully awake to the blood pulsing through my hand you held in yours. Each beat an irrational wish to haul you to me, kiss you for a moment, let go. I could make a home right there, in that soft hollow of your neck, I thought. I didn't know then that such a place existed, a shelter hundred dreams away from anywhere. And yet there we were. You were so close I could see through your cracks, find meaning to the words, sadness, joy swirling violently from beneath your skin. It was beautiful. You were, you are. I ached for I had been looking for something I was scared to find, and finally found it, in you. You. And now I wonder: how could I be so afraid?


You looking out the window: this is all I have of you now, your only definition. I will think of you, remember you, half of a face riddled with hope and a gentle smile blunting lines of loneliness I have come to know, until time itself forgets and memory turns into a mere trick of light in the gathering darkness of our story at its close.