Beyond Us

It was one of those nights
When you succumbed
To a couch ridden
Crystallized sleep

The room drained of sound
Your steady breathing
Couldn't be detected
I tiptoed to bed

In retreat
From your deaf
Encasement

For an hour
I flipped the pages of a book
Just to enfold myself
In that rusty autumn sound
We print ink on dry dead
Plants and call it language

Those leaves filled my head
Not as a pile for me to lay upon
But as a hurricane of thoughts
That whipped itself into calcium being

It was one of those nights
When I couldn't sleep without
The warm weight of you
Next to me
Because
If you aren't next to me
I can't be certain you aren't dead
And your silence will mute me

You are alive
Even in this stasis
Hugging a bound pile of printed
Plants just isn't the same

Somehow

I slither out of bed
Find you
By way of something
More dependable than my senses

Kneeling
At your side
I place the back of my hand
To forehead

"Solid. Hot. Moving."
I whisper
I breathe

Palm slides to cup cheek
And in the blackness I can permit myself
The tears of someone anticipating great loss
One day

But

That day
Is not
Today

I wake you soothingly
Play my part
In the machinations of how our lives
Will unfold
Two unlikely continents
Come together

While our borders are not soft
They fit well enough
And hold on
Even better

It was one of those nights
When you slept
Without breathing

And I feared
You
Dead

It was one of those nights
When I remembered
The ruthlessness
Of the world

Beyond

March 26, 2016