As I lie with you,
your heartbeat knocks against my ribs,
a bell tolling deep in the chapel of my chest,
calling me down an aisle that only exists in blood
Your breath drapes across my skin,
a veiled tugged by invisible wind,
thin lace of sound that makes the silence holy
The veins in your wrist guide me like ribbons,
leading me forward,
row by row of my own devotion
to a ceremony no one else can see.
Your lips, parted,
rest like unopened vows,
a promise sealed in silence
and yet I answer, against your sleeping mouth:
I do, I do, I do.
Your hair burns against my cheek,
ginger strands glowing like altar flames,
and your blue eyes , watchful, endless,
press into me like stained glass,
fragile and holy.
The flowers you once gave me,
Wilted now, their petals crumble to dust.
I scatter them across the aisle of my chest,
Their faded bodies marking the way to you.
I take your hands in mine,
fingers trembling across cold marble,
and feel them guiding me,
not to rings or vows,
but to the altar of your pulse,
the living hymn beneath your skin.
Your voice, even unspoken,
is an *****’s echo,
a hymn written in the rafters of my chest
And as I walk this wedding
That never leaves my body,
I realize the kiss never comes,
the vows never spoken,
the doors never open
Only the hush of your chest rising and falling.
It is all what could have been:
a ceremony lit by the pulse of your wrist,
a marriage carried only by my blood,
an ending carved into silence,
a marriage written across our bodies,
a union sealed in my longing.
And you,
you are both bride and ghost,
wrapped in my arms yet slipping through them,
leaving me to whisper forever
into the hollow of your throat:
I do, I do, I do
I love you and miss you