The Course of True Love...

I remember the in-and-out breaths that made his chest rise and fall and rise and fall. There were tiny chill bumps on his skin where it was uncovered, pale and blue in streetlight’s midnight shadows. His legs pressed into mine, my arm resting on his stomach. In the quiet hours before the ocean, I learned about how it feels to love with no obligation. No expectation, no remove.

I rose on my elbow and watched the subtle flicking of his eyelids as he dreamed. He was in a world I couldn’t share with him and I wondered if he’d invited me in; if he felt the perfect pain of absence that reminds us of the feelings that matter most. I would spend one hundred winter days wanting those tingling emotions that happened when he’d return, and knowing with certainty that he wouldn’t.

I moved my left hand to the warm point where his shoulder met his neck. The feel of his skin, his warmth has remained on fingertips that have searched so many others for what they won’t find again. His lips were still as I touched my finger to them; his breath exhaling deeply. In twilight silence I leaned forward and kissed him with the gentleness of forever. His hand reached up and rested softly on my own; his tender acknowledgement of our uncorrupted world.

As I lay down on a pillow beside him, his touch remained. My breaths fell into his and I prayed for remembrance. “The course of true love never did run smooth.” And I wonder about what he found in the darkened silences we cannot share. Was he greeted and comforted? Who holds him and was he allowed to look back? On blue shadowy nights with unanswered memories, I miss the silent music of true love.