“how are you?,”
she asks,
like people always do,
as if she, like most,
does not understand the absolute impossibility of the question
it becomes a frantic puzzle to decode:
does she really want to know the truth?
how can I possibly sum it up in a simple answer?
or is she just asking in the meaningless way people do,
only wanting the answer,
“fine”
because I am not fine
a look passed between them,
a complicated mixture of things,
an acknowledgement,
one that might normally make the heart sing,
but cut with the knowledge that some things are impossible,
it made her heart break a little knowing it
I remember bringing you home like it was yesterday,
then I blinked,
and you were a toddler,
running us ragged, questioning everything
I blinked again,
and you were a teenager,
spending too much time in your room,
stuck inside your feelings,
treading deep in the soft side of strong
then, I blinked again,
and now you are grown,
about to get your own place,
feeling your way around adulthood
I often find myself looking at you,
and when I do,
I see all of you,
all the versions of you that you’ve been;
I see glimpses of who you’ll be
and I need you to know –
it may not always have been easy,
but you need never apologize –
you’ve always been easy to love
I still think about the way he listens to my secrets,
cradling the words and folding them into himself,
even as I continue to unearth the worst of me,
digging so deep,
I chip away the cracked to find the patinae,
so aged,
I taste rust in the back of throat
many days,
my bones feel as if they’re already drawing me
into the earth,
but he reminds me it’s just a returning
to the safety of our roots
his face transforms as he stares at me,
a burning recklessness filling his eyes as he leads me into a wind tunnel kiss,
my whole self leaning into the sweeping lost
I become the warmth, the wet,
the tickle, the sting
we can’t let go –
it becomes the writing of a song,
a balancing act of unearthing,
the ferociously visceral sensing of the other as we sway,
back and forth in search of a revelatory harmony
and I realize the only time I feel alive is when he looks at me like that,
riveting me to the moment
his voice is low and soft,
a piece of silk you might keep in a drawer and pull out only on special occasions just to feel it between your fingers,
as a stream of I love you’s purls from his lips,
like rain from cloud to roof to eave,
and her face becomes fierce with belief,
drawing a circle around all the hours they’ve spent together,
a feeling of longing crashing against the underside of her ribs as the swollen, humid air begins to swirl with their whispers,
suspended,
like the iridescent membranes of soap bubbles
he was tall but not too tall,
his lips thin but easy to smile,
deep viridescent eyes set beneath a strong brow,
not brooding exactly,
but very serious,
looking at her with an unexpected sincerity
she’d met him briefly before and had seen him around campus over the last few years,
and though she didn’t know him well at all,
this night, she felt a strange pulse of profound recognition
throughout the evening they kept glancing at one another,
their eyes each drawn to the other,
and normally,
she hated being stared at,
but this was somehow very different
it was the oddest, most intense feeling –
she had the sensation that she was being seen,
and she hadn’t even known she’d felt invisible
he was waxing poetic
and waning in prose
every ravishing word
stripping more of her clothes
they’d loved one another for so long,
and sometimes life began to feel a little rote,
but when they came together,
they forgot the lists and routines,
they forgot who they were and what brought them together
but she didn’t forget he was the most trustworthy, honest, and compassionate human she’d ever known,
the reason she could be who she was in every moment
and he didn’t forget she was the empathic fire at his backside,
a simple woman with a complicated heart,
the beating of his own heart
what happened between them was always unexpected;
in these moments a new future opened wide –
a world where anything could happen and nothing was impossible
life has drastically evolved in our 26 years together,
and we, too, are not the same,
but, still, your smile softens the sharp edges of this hard world,
flapping its wings so high in the air it falls upon me like a meteorite,
its iridescent fabric trailing red thunder and liquid gold,
planting in my heart the kind of hopeful purple only communion can produce
I love you
Heart Breathings 