I wonder if this goes by
in a blinding flash for you,
the tranquil sleep gripping
your warm still body now.

How you rest here almost motionless,
legs seamlessly braided with mine,
chest rhythmically rising and falling
like some beautiful engine I don't understand...

I don't think I'll ever know.

I know you more than anyone here, though.

How you were pure motion earlier,
wrapped around me and grinding
like a fury needed to be expelled
and could no longer breathe alone.

I know the smallest significant shifts,
as if you had been waiting for years
deep inside a fragile chrysalis
and sought me in your escape.

But you're in a deep sleep now,
I can tell it is a dreamless drift
by the exact way you breathe,
how you exhale a language made up
of no true structured characters.

It's the speech of bodies nestled together,
of human hands smoothing away the locks
that have spilled across closed eyes,
the fingertips that caress your cheek,
travel the unique curve of your jawline,
the delicate bridge of your neck
as if I can trace entire lifelines in them.

I wonder if this goes by
in a momentary flash for you.

If your dreams are populated with memories
in dusty film reels and photographs,
your mirrored life ready to be touched
while understanding hovers just out of reach.

Or if you float through galaxies,
spheres of other worlds cradled by stars,
the soul's buoyancy carrying you through
all things permanent and celestial.

Or if time moves you back
to me in a singular blink
as where I have been
here all along with you.

I don't think I'll ever know.

I know this time is mine, though,
and I guard it so jealously,
I think you'd understand,
how I stay here after you drift,
your safe tether to the world.

Your hand has been clasped in mine
for hours and suddenly squeezes,
it's the quickest rushing pulse
travelling under the mysteries
that all human bodies contain.

It's the speech that coils behind reason,
a tongue outliving all we know of faith,
of the words we believe must
be handed over to one another.

It tells me that you will always understand.