Kindling: Winter Thoughts

I never really fit…anywhere or with another…more often than not I was singular even in a crowd…a solitary soul, a stranger among friends…but then he materialized, as if from the late shadows of winter trees under frostbitten moonlight…and he silently laid beside a girl trailing satellites..the sting of cold asphalt through our clothes…taking my hand, fingers entwined…the warmth of such a clasp and the energy building between our two bodies…ignited a thermal melt in late December…and here, it’s November…a chill creeps through casements and steals my comfort…come home, from the cold that shrouds you as well…to sheets we’ll tangle…our bodies a perfect fit no matter how we lay…and we’ll ignite fires in the walls…burning our silhouettes for future owners to wonder…much like strangers passing dark portals we haunted…assuming we were foolish lovers as we laughed through kissing…and you welcomed my strange and I fell hopelessly into your stability…and we set sidewalks aflame…and you sang to me a promise that everything would be alright…and you took me on silver wings to my home…where we drove the coast with the dead and made love to the rhythm of waves…all the words you’ve said to me and the most profound of my life was hearing you simply say my name that first night…I’d wait a thousand more lives to see the truth of myself reflected in your eyes..I’ll leave you infinite moons if you’d clasp the back of my head in your hand and set me afire with just one look…your fingers unearthing memories of faces we bore when the world was still green…there’s so much more to a love born of simplicity…waking most mornings, your absence is an empty hand atop a cold mattress…but your warmth is indelible in my bones…

E.A. O'Connell