Come lay with me. Do you feel your fingertips itching, hear that pounding in your chest? Yes, you’re alive. And you want. So chase those wants. Get in that car, drive down those snowy roads, and come to me. I’ll be asleep, curled up in some half-dream. You’ll see the blankets pooled between my legs, the pillow tucked underneath my cheek. You’ll watch me for a moment, count the steady breaths to see if I’m really asleep. And as you become convinced, you’ll remember why you loved me in the first place. That little smile-wrinkle under my left eye, the curve of my ear, the bitten-down cuticles. You will shake your head at the quiet room, not to me, but to yourself for all the nights that have passed. For all the steady breaths you haven’t counted, for the way my spine has curved in, away from where you used to lay.
You will stand there, trying not to breathe so not the break the silence. You will have wet shoes that leave puddles, a thin shirt because you didn’t think, you just left. And slowly you will set your keys on the floor, slip out of your shoes. You will pull that thin shirt over your head, naked skin cool to the touch. You will reach for me.
I will be tired and sleepy. I will be far away dreaming of a world I do not know, of the places I will be. I will not hear you. You will step forward, your weight barely on the edge of the bed. You will shift your weight and move close to me. A gentle hand will pull me to you and you will finally breathe, a steadiness that matches my own.
I will shift, feeling the coolness of you against my own warm skin. I will drift in and out of dreaming, knowing you are next to me. I will shift to you, absentmindedly, like the way lost souls seem to drift back to each other. Then I will slip back into dreams, dreams of possibility.