shortireads

I’m nervous because I just stepped into your thoughts.

Arms crossed over my chest, I’m suddenly aware of the space I occupy standing beside your bed. Uncomfortable in my own anatomy as if my cells had increased in weight and shape, I was faced with the extraneity of our existences whilst the rest of my body carried on living.

I’m hungry for every detail, greedy for the little reasons behind your arranged chaos. I touch one of the ties hanging off the wooden rack. It had a silky feel of you. There’s scrolls on the walls like bricks of thoughts.
I want to read them all at once. If my eyes could keep up, I would let my brain overheat in the attempt to consume your essence spilled on these sheets of paper. When sorting through seasons of your being, your past clutters at the edges of my perception, swooping in to remind me you’ve existed before me. All these moments I know nothing about, days I failed to witness, veil my thoughts with dull jealousy.

I’m far more nervous than when we lay beside each other with my secrets exposed, when our hands interlink on the pillow and your nose brushes my nape. More nervous than when you kiss my hand, intensely on the palm, and I cup your mouth so to hold your words between my fingers. More nervous than when I am filled with you, lost in the innate need of unity that leaves me aching once it ends.