Dust floats on rays of light dancing just above my head. Sheets are rumpled from sleep; covers long ago lost to the floor. Long morning shadows slice across her back and my face; alternating diagonals of light and dark with no regard for boundaries. Shadows do not see the end of her and the beginning of me – we are just parts of a space moving toward illumination.
These tiny details mesmerize and imprint in that split second before my neck arches back on the pillow. The forgetting happens just as quickly. All that remains is the endless expanse of skin against skin.
The air holds our awareness of the passage of limited moments, but there will be no rushing today.
The spaces between abject disillusionment and fierce connection dissolve. Breath mingles and awareness travels across length and breadth. There are days when knowing expands and you grasp fully that love is both mirror and magnifying glass. What are strength and weakness but the same really, in the end?
Our bodies fit; a puzzle of infinite possibility. Light kisses golden along collarbone and shoulder and I follow it– nimble lips along unyielding bone. My back presses against soft white sheets; my heart against hers. Our legs wind serpentine, this dance a sacrament of touch. Inhale matches exhale until breath catches on words that need not be spoken. Our hands tell all the stories that need telling now.
We have been offering ourselves as sacrifice to gods we do not yet understand or know if we should believe in. Today we offer ourselves only to each other; gods be dammed.
We have cracked ourselves open, pushed hard against unbending convention and screamed a defiant yes to the rush of fear that followed. Secrets content to hide in the shadows have been ushered into the light and welcomed home. Passion and possession loop and twist, a roller coaster where all seemed lost and then found again. We have confessed and cried and torn at each other with words and hands and bitter silence. Expansion and contraction, it seems, are never entirely without cost.
Hearts are raw, eyes unveiled. We see all, but do not turn away. But it’s all softness now, yielding flesh and lithe curves and the rightness of coming home. Hearts mirror hands and lips and sounds released from deep inside. Moments pass measured only by quickening beat and rapid breath. The light climbs and shadows shift until the room is a reflection of renewal.
Yes, time is measured now, but still we do not hurry. Bodies stake fierce claim, even in lingering uncertainty, that this is ours to have and to keep. Now all the rush and butterflies of the initial free fall are balanced by depth and aching tenderness of two souls who have lived and loved a lifetime in a few short years.
And we live and love a lifetime in this brief moment. Bodies weave spells and tongues speak incantations against skin as soft and salty as the ocean that calls me home. Waves crash now and we are worn down and broken and shifted in the wake of their withdrawal. Shifted and broken yes, unrecognizable perhaps, but always at the root of things exactly the same as we began.
Life calls to be awake to sacred moments. This is hallowed ground here; we are hallowed ground. I am turned toward her now. Only her. Body, soul, mind, and broken and beating hearts. Nothing will be sacrificed today; no spirit of martyrdom welcome in the offering of ourselves to one another.
She is mine, this girl, and I hers. All questions can be measured against this moment. Measured against geometry of light and shadow, against slow slide of time on the bedside clock, against trail of fingertips across stomach. Against ragged breath and locked gaze and grasp of interlaced fingers as we find our way home. Again, and again we find our way home.
Head falls back against pillow. Her weight is heavy on mine; her head nestled against the curve of my neck. Breath returns to normal. The world refocuses. I open my eyes and see the dust still floating in the rays above my head, as if nothing has changed. I twist and twirl my hands upward, languid, wanting to be a part of their lazy path.
It is miraculous, I think, how something so ordinary can sparkle like magic in the right light.
