We are together.

And that is what matters.

I hold your laugh in the palm of my hand. Like a tender thing. A fragile thing. And I think of what it is to love and be loved. To gather in the perimeter of the wrecking ball and eat cold wings.

But we are together you see. And though we make no show of our tenderness, it cleaves us. And I puff puff after you, and you crush the nuts for my sandwich and John asks us to sing.

And all the while your laughs rest in my palms. And I sit so still. Still as midnight. Careful not to drop one.

Because we are together.

tired

of this shame I carry.

of limiting my joy

of holding my consciousness prisoner from the present.

of aching in this way

What I seek is the purest form of me.

to embrace her and feel her honest fingertips in my hair

on my neck

to know what it is to be me.

to unspool the sin

the secrets

the shame

to live.